


scribbles

by aprilshxwers



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Crack Treated Seriously, F/M, Fluff, High School AU, How Do I Tag, M/M, Nico is a Dork, Slow Burn, So yeah, Summary Has Been Changed, all the homo, and drew is an actual human being, and not just a side prop to add to pipers 'not like other girls' trope, and so far it is, and the whole sEcReT aDmIrEr oOoH thing has been demoted to subplot bc i suck, bc honestly who isnt, because piper, but i dont know how long i can live like this, everyone is oblivious, except piper, honestly this is borderline crack, im so sorry, ive rewritten my plot to the point where youd expect me to try to follow it but i dont, jasper are such moms, no one asked for this, piper is confused about her identity, so much sibling love tbh, this is supposed to be a slow burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-11-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:29:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 22,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25187206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aprilshxwers/pseuds/aprilshxwers
Summary: Can't Nico just try to survive senior year and pine over Will Solace in peace? Apparently not, thanks to his nosy friends (and sister, that traitor) and, oh yeah, the letters. Did anyone mention those?-read the tags
Relationships: Hazel Levesque/Frank Zhang, Jason Grace/Piper McLean, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Nico di Angelo/Will Solace
Comments: 123
Kudos: 261





	1. nothing? nothing.

_ hey,  _

_ okay, so yeah, i know how incredibly cringy i am by leaving letters in your locker. i’m sorry, but i’m way too chicken to actually suck it up and admit my feelings in real life, so, cringe it is.  _

_ so, the truth is i’ve like you for some time now.. and by some time i mean ever since you first moved here and wowowowowowowow that seems really cheesy and aaaa i’m sorry and i KNOW that there was some talk about you liking percy, and i know that sending you this is a lost cause you probably really hate me but honestly you’re so gosh darn adorable and i just can’t help it, okay? _

_ i’m coming off as super creepy here, dang it, but my idiot friends dared me to do this because i lost some stupid bet (long story) but JOKES ON THEM because they don’t get to read it ahahaha (sorry that you have to tho) _

_ but yeah, im sure you could care less and you are by no means obliged to respond to my random ass 2 am scribbling, but i mean, if you like really really actually wanted to you could possibly leave your response… under the library table closest to the door?  _

_ sorry for bothering you, _

_ someone _

Nico gaped at the note.  _ No freaking way.  _ Someone actually liked him enough to leave a freaking letter in his locker??? Well, it had been a dare, but  _ technicalities.  _ Still, he felt a little bad. How do you politely tell someone who likes you that you may or not like someone else?

Because he could find a way to screw up, he’d talk to someone before he made any dumb decisions, he decided.

\--

“I really don’t know what to do,” Nico groaned. He had chosen to talk to Jason Grace because he trusted him  to not mercilessly tease him about this... situation. 

Jason shrugged, shoving a piece of brownie in his mouth. “I mean, I guess it’d be fine if you, I dunno, replied to them without leading them on. Or maybe you could take a chance..?”

Nico tapped his fingers on the table. “No, I can’t do that. That’d be totally unfair to whoever this person is.”

“Unfair? Why?”

“Because I’m having enough trouble with my love life as it is,” he grumbled.

Jason gasped dramatically. “You like someone? Who is it? I need to know. You can’t just tell me you like someone without giving me the dirt, Neeks.” 

Nico resisted the urge to slap him. Just barely. “I trusted you, Grace. I trusted you not to be a moron, and look where we are.”

“Fine. But.. hair color?”

He looked around to make sure no one was listening before quietly mumbling, “Blond...”

Jason frowned, looking around the cafeteria.  _ No, STOP LOOKING FOR HIM. _ “Eyes?”

“Yes Jason, he has eyes,” Nico replied sarcastically. Jason glared at him. “Okay, okay. Fine. They’re blue.”  _ And probably the prettiest shade of blue I’ve ever seen… _

“Wait a second.” Jason patted his hair and then pointed to his eyes. 

“One time, Jason.  _ That was one time _ . But, anyways, you don’t have his stupidly adorable freckles, dork.” Pause. Nico silently cursed himself for saying that as soon as Jason’s (different shade!) eyes widened.

“ _ Will?!”  _ he exclaimed, loudly enough to make Nico put his face in his hands in embarrassment. “Sorry, sorry. But  _ Will Solace?  _ As in ‘ugh, he’s the most annoying human being I’ve ever had the displeasure of meeting’ Will Solace?”

“Anyways, he’s probably not even into guys. And no, I’ve never said that  _ exactly _ ,” he said defensively. 

Jason scoffed. “Really?” Nico punched him in the arm.    
  


“Moving back to the matter at hand, Grace.” Jason opened his mouth to protest but decided against it, probably not to get punched again.

“Okay,  _ fine _ . I think that you should reply. The poor person’s probably gonna be looking under the table forever waiting for your response. But tell them you’re not interested. But don’t say it’s because of Will because they could be...” He paused for effect. “a spy.”

Nico facepalmed. “You’re so stupid sometimes.”

“You still love me.”

“Unfortunately, I do.”

“You don’t want Will hearing you say that, though.”

This time, Nico did punch him again.

\--

_ hi there mystery person _

_ first of all, can i just say that i am a full out wimp and i could never ever write anything to anyone and i think it’s cool you wrote to me. don’t get me wrong, i’m super flattered and all, but.. _

_ one: i dont have any idea who you are, no offense _

_ and two: i (maybe??? idk life is confusing) kinda am into someone else at the moment (not percy, for that matter. not my type) _

_ but i mean if you still wanna talk or something, that’s cool too, i guess _

_ sorry, _

_ nico _

Nico taped the note underneath the table, feeling like he had done a decent job of not breaking anyone’s heart (hopefully).

He picked up his book and started to make his way out of the library, not expecting to bump into someone on the way.

“You know, di Angelo, you really should watch where you’re going.” 

Nico crossed his arms stubbornly _.  _ “Well, I was here first, Solace.”

Will raised an eyebrow in amusement. Nico tried to not focus on the fact that his freckles looked so much like constellations.  _ That talk with Jason is making this so much worse,  _ he thought miserably. “Whatever you say.” Something suddenly caught Will’s eye.

Nico looked back to where Will was staring.  _ Nico, you absolute walnut,  _ he scolded himself, mentally panicking. Somehow, he had failed to tape the note properly, and half of it was visibly dangling down.

“Hey, isn’t that where you were sitting?” Will asked. 

“Um.. no?” Nico stared at him, trying not to melt into a puddle of embarrassment. “Idiot,” he added quickly. Somehow, it seemed to do the trick because Will didn’t press any further.

“Okay? Um, so, are you leaving?” 

“I- oh yeah. Yeah, I am. I’m leaving. Like right now. Okay, bye, Will. I mean- okay, I’m leaving now, um, yup.” He turned around and started walking away faster, trying to drown out the sound of Will’s laughter. 

Stupid Will Solace with his stupidly cute laugh.

_ <to: mom> jason i need you to take me home before i spontaneously combust, please and thank you _

\--

There was another one the next day.

_ holy frick you actually answered _

_ actually i already knew that you did, haha _

_ um yeah, VERY glad you don’t know who i am. I literally had to ask someone to write these for me because i have crappy, very noticeable handwriting, and yeah, obviously i didnt expect you to be into a piece of paper. _

_ like seriously, i’m not writing these because i think you’ll magically fall in love with the ‘mysterious writer behind these letters oooh ahhh’. i know you’re not dense (for the most part), and OBVIOUSLY you like someone. you better go and get him because you deserve the absolute world. sorry that was super cheesy.  _

_ but i’m a complete wimp as well, soooo yeah. i mean i never would’ve done this if my friends hadn’t dared me to. like i wasn’t gonna respond to you but then my friend (the one who is writing this right now. hiiii neeks) practically forced me to, so, yeah. here we are. _

_ okay then, _

_ me _

Nico jumped as he felt someone’s head on his shoulder. “Oooh, is that from your secret admirer?” Piper asked, grinning knowingly.

“Hold up. How did you-” Piper raised an eyebrow, as if it was obvious. Oh, of course. “Jason?” She nodded. Those two were weirdly close, Nico should’ve suspected as much.

“This is so cute though.” Nico opened his mouth to say something. “Oh, yeah, I know about the other thing too. My lips are sealed. Don’t worry.”

“Sometimes I wonder who’s more of a mom, you or Jason,” he mutterad as Piper ruffles his hair affectionately. “Or both.”  _ Not that I mind,  _ he thought, trying not to smile.

Piper laughed. “We could adopt you if you wanted.”

“My dad isn't  _ that  _ bad. Plus, if you adopted me, you better adopt Hazel as well. I’m not going anywhere without my little sister,” he said, matter-of-factly. “Unfortunately, Bianca’s already in college.”

“Dang it, I wanted to collect the whole set.”

“Don’t tell Jason, but I would totally let you adopt me.”

“I know that,” she said, giving him a kiss on the top of his head.

“Hey, stop that before people think that we’re dating,” Nico said, pretending to be serious. They stared at each other for a solid ten seconds before bursting into a fit of giggles that would’ve embarrassed him if he was with anyone other than her.

“Not really my type.”

“Not mine either, McLean.”

She elbowed him. “I’m sure I might be missing a few things to fall into that category.”

“Hey! My standards aren’t that low!” He paused to think before sighing. “Actually, they kind of are.” Piper pats his shoulder.

“Sadly, so are mine.” 

Nico frowned at her. “What is that supposed to mean?”

The bell rang before he could get an answer.

\--

“You do realize your book is upside down, right?” Will Solace pointed out. Nico, who was unlucky enough to be sitting beside him in English, coughed and turned it around quickly, shooting him a glare. Will gave him a confused look (he seemed to get a lot of those lately).

“Before you ask, Solace, not all of us care enough about this stupid class to actually pay attention. Plus, SparkNotes and Wikipedia are always available.” 

Will looked taken back, as if that was the most offensive thing anyone had said to him all day. “Are you joking? You haven’t actually read the book?”

“Uh, no.” Sure, he had  _ tried  _ to read The Fault in Our Stars, but it was so painfully cliche and boring that he had given up less than ten pages in. 

“So, what  _ are  _ you doing?” Will asked. 

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing.” 

“Maybe nothing can be our always,” Will joked. “That was supposed to be a reference.” 

Nico felt offended that he would make a reference to a book he hadn’t read. “You can’t just make a reference to something I specifically said I didn’t read.”

Will grinned, which made Nico want to both kiss him and punch him. “Well, I guess you’ll have to read it.”

He glared at him (because obviously, that was the optimal flirting technique). “You can’t get me to read this that easily.”

“Well, you better, because I doubt Drew is going to. I am not going to be the only one working on this project,” he said. 

Nico looked at him, incredibly confused. 

“What project?”

Will gaped at him, just not in the way he would’ve preferred. “Are you meaning to tell me you weren’t even listening to Mrs. Venus when she assigned us our groups?”

“No?” Usually, all their teacher talked about was romance, tragedy, and stupid cliches that Nico did not feel obliged to listen to. “When was this?”

“Like.. five minutes ago.”

“Oh.” He shrugged. “Well, I mean, all we really have to do to get an A is put in sappy quotes and cute fonts.”

“Oh my god, I am so screwed.” Will looked up at the sky, as if regretting all of his life decisions that had led to him working on a project together with Nico. 

Nico thought this was very unfair, especially considering the fact that Drew Tanaka was also in their group. Really, Nico should’ve been the  _ least  _ of Will’s worries.

“So, are you gonna give me your number or something?”  _ Wow, Nico, please calm down. _

“What? Oh, yeah.” This was really not how he had expected to get Will Solace’s number. Will handed him a post-it note. 

“What is this?” Nico stared at it as if it were untouchable. “Am I supposed to be able to read that?”

“My handwriting really isn’t  _ that  _ bad. You can read it well enough.” 

_ Ughhh, why are my standards so low? _


	2. nico.exe has stopped working

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah kind of short, sorry

Nico had left his reply at the same spot as he had the other day. 

_hi again._

_yes, strange person, i did, though i am curious to how you already knew that i would reply. maybe you have spies, who knows?_

_and i very much doubt that your handwriting can be that bad. after managing to decipher the world’s most sloppily written phone number, i think i can handle just about anything. even my doctor’s prescriptions aren’t that bad._

_i would also very much like to know who is writing these for you because only few people are actually allowed to call me neeks without getting hit, which only furthers my belief of your spies. should i trust anyone from now on?_

_nico_

Fortunately, he hadn’t happened to run into anyone as he left, (particularly a specific blond who made him legs turn into jelly) and also somehow managed to tape the note properly, which should not have been as hard as it was.

\--

“Nico, what the heck are you doing..?” Hazel asked, her eyebrows furrowed in either confusion or concern. Either worked, really, considering the fact that her brother was rocking back and forth on the sofa, staring at his phone. 

He raised a finger in her direction. “Shh, Hazel. I’m waiting for him to reply.”

Hazel looked at him weirdly before snatching the phone away from him. “All this says is “Is this your number because I couldn’t tell if that was a 5 or a 6?” Who is this even supposed to be to?”

“I need it, pleasee,” he groaned. 

“No. You have been sitting there for the past hour,” she said stubbornly.

“But, _Hazel_ -” He froze as the phone dinged with a notification. “Hazel, no, give it to me, right now. This is a private matter.”

Hazel looked at the screen before making a face. “Why are you obsessing over a text from- _oh my god, Nico, no way._ You like _him_?”

“How have three people already figured it out in a matter of two days? Whatever. What does it say?” Nico asked, trying not to jump out of his seat.

“It literally just says “Yup. That is, if you’re talking about me?” and then he sent a selfie.” She began typing something. “I’m replying to him.”

Nico paled. “No, you are not.”

“Too late, already sent.”

He got up and quickly grabbed his phone back. His urge to squeal at Will’s picture vanished as soon as he saw what Hazel had written. “Why would you send that?!” His face flushed. “Oh, my god, he’s replying.”

_ <me> well someone’s looking fine _

_ <maybe will????> ahaha i know, that was really random though ?? _

He put his head in his hands. “Are you kidding me, I will never be able to show my face ever again.”

_ <me> hi ok im sorry that was my sister she is a weirdo so please ignore that _

Hazel snorted, looking over his shoulder. “Smooth.”

_ <will> oh well, i’m going to add drew to this, okay? _

“Did he say ‘oh well’?” Hazel asked. “Nico, this is the perfect opportunity to make your move! Shoot your shot!”

“Yeah, right before he said he was going to add Drew Tanaka, who is, might I remind you, about a trillion times hotter than I am.”

_[will has added <unknown contact> to the chat] _

_[will has renamed the chat “english project!!!”]_

_ <drew> ok so do i want to ask about those messages _

_ <will> shush kiddos, we have to decide where we’re meeting up _

_ <me> did you forget that we haven’t read the book _

“What are you doing?” Hazel complained. “This is your chance to go on an unofficial date.” Nico looked at her in confusion. “Well, do you really think Drew _wants_ to work on this? No, so say you should meet up at Starbucks or something, and boom! Unofficial date.”

_ <will> oh yeah _

_ <will> finish it and we can talk _

“Actually, I don’t think that’s happening any time soon,” Nico said, shrugging.

“Wow. Good job. I’ll be the flower girl at your funeral.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not how it goes.”

_ <drew> so.. never? _

_ <me> whatever you say solace _

_ <will> can’t hear you, you haven’t finished yet _

“You’re hopeless,” Hazel said with a sigh. “I’m ordering pizza. And no pineapple.” Nico stuck his tongue out at her. “It’s almost as gross as your flirting, or lack thereof.”

\--

Nico would be lying if he said the letters didn’t make him smile. Maybe it was because it was nice that he wasn’t the only one who was super awkward or maybe it was because he really needed to get a social life.

_*insert me panicking here*_

_i get really happy whenever you reply like ??? i have developed a really unhealthy habit of checking under that stupid table, so curse you, di angelo._

_also, how did you find out about my spies so quickly? so unfair, i thought i was being slick. ((he’s really not)) guess you aren’t as dense as i thought._

_and i really doubt “the world’s most_ _sloppily written phone number” could be worse than my handwriting, how dare this amateur take my throne. it’s because_ _~~pi~~ _ _my friend’s writing this, isn’t it._

_anyways, have a good day_

He couldn’t help but still feel a little bit guilty about not being able to return Mystery Person’s feelings.

\--

For some reason, both Piper and Jason weren’t at lunch that day, though Nico had no idea why. Which meant he was by himself. In a high school cafeteria. That sounded like the beginning of a horror movie.

The second weird occurrence was two people Nico didn’t even know waving for him to sit with them. He was pretty sure their names were Cecil and Lou Something, but why they wanted to sit with him, he had no clue. Then again, he didn’t want to be rude, so he did.

“Um, hi,” he said, sitting down. Cecil and Lou Something were grinning so wide that for a second he wondered if he was about to be kidnapped. Maybe they had already taken Piper and Jason and he was next.

“Hey, this is Lou Ellen, and I’m Cecil,” Cecil said. 

“Okay..? I’m-”

“We know,” he said. The two shared a look as if they knew more about him than they’d like. Which made no sense at all. 

“Um, can I ask how?” This was getting weirder by the second.

“Well- wait,” Lou Ellen said, looking at something past Nico’s shoulder. She laughed. “Aw, look, Cecil, he’s flipping us off.”

Nico froze up at the _very_ familiar voice behind him. 

“What the _actual_ hell?”

“Hey, Will,” Cecil said, smiling triumphantly as he sat down beside Nico, clearly annoyed. 

“He doesn’t have food. Why doesn’t he have food?” Cecil and Lou Ellen both shrugged. Will turned to Nico, looking angry. “Why are you not eating?” 

“Because I’m not hungry,” Nico said, as if it were obvious. Because it was. Cecil and Lou Ellen began talking quietly to the side, giving the two of them amused looks.

“Are you kidding me?” Will started opening his lunch bag aggressively (something Nico had never imagined he would see). “It's almost one, and you’re not hungry.”

“I--What are you doing?” Nico asked as Will began cutting his sandwich in half. 

“I’m giving you my food, duh.” Will handed him a piece. 

Nico stared at him. “No, you’re not. Because I’ve already had breakfast and I don’t want to eat anything else.” Will looked aghast.

“Are you meaning to tell me that you don’t eat all three meals a day? No wonder you look like a complete twig. That’s not healthy!” Will pressed the sandwich into his hands. “Take it.”

“But it’s _yours_.” 

“I know that. I swear it isn’t poisoned, just please stop being a stubborn little brat and eat so you don’t pass out or something, jeez.”

Nico sighed before obliging and taking it. He took a tiny bite. “Happy?”

“No. Finish that first, and then we’ll see.” Will started pulling more food out of his lunch bag as Nico watched him, taking absolutely forever to eat half of a sandwich. But, hey, he was distracted, okay? 

After about ten minutes of them eating in awkward silence as Cecil and Lou Ellen laughed about something in the background, Nico finally finished.  
  


“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay, as in ‘I’m finished so please stop staring at me like that’,” Nico said. Will rolled his eyes, but did _not_ , in fact, ‘stop staring at him like that’. How rude.

“Do you feel better now?”

“I wasn’t feeling bad in the first place, you absolute nincompoop.” It was getting very hard to focus on anything other than the stray hair that was covering Will’s eyes. It was making him slowly go insane.

_Don’t do it, don’t do it, don’t do it-_

Nico brushed it aside, cursing himself as he did so.

“Oh,” Will said, looking at him blankly. _I think I may have broken him._

Nico glared at him, trying to ignore the tingly feeling in his fingers. “It was annoying me. Which says a lot considering the rest of you annoys me as well.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I know,” Will said, looking off to the side. “You make that pretty obvious.”

“Well, I’ve heard I have quite a way with words.”

Will tilted his head before laughing. “I guess you could say that. I mean, I’ve never been called an absolute nincompoop before. Getting creative with the insults, are we?”

“Well _I’ve_ never been forced to eat before, so I think we’re pretty even.”

Will smiled, shaking his head in amusement. Nico’s hands twitched as his hair fell back over his eyes. “That’s a fair point.” 

He forced himself to nod, wondering how long he could keep up this conversation before he cracked. “I- yeah. Wait, what are we talking about again?” 

Will stared at him before sighing in defeat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments are great *hint hint nudge nudge*


	3. brunch is a fake meal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> DREW. and FRIENDSHIP.

“Where were you guys?”

Jason and Piper guiltily looked down. Or at least Nico had _thought_ they looked guilty until he saw the grins on their faces. “Okay, okay, we have a perfectly good explanation,” Jason said.

Nico rubbed his temples. “You’re kidding.”

“Actually, I feel as if you should be thanking us.” Nico tried to say something before Piper cut him off. “No, no, actually, you don’t need to say thank you. Think of it as an early birthday present. Of course, Lou and Cecil helped as well, but in the end, it was my idea. You’re welcome!”

“Back up, back up. Why were Lou Ellen and Cecil involved in the first place?” he asked, furrowing his eyebrows.

Jason elbowed her. “ _Pipes._ ” Nico looked at him, frowning. “Well, um, I dunno. I guess they just, um.. shipped it?” 

She elbowed him back, getting some stares from the rest of the cafe. “Shut up, you even made them a ship name.” 

“You did _what?_ ” 

“Piper, shush. Or do I need to remind you that you helped?”

“Guys,” Nico interrupted. “I’m literally _right here._ You do realize that?” Piper and Jason blinked before continuing to argue. “You two can continue bickering, but,” he looked at his wrist and checked his imaginary watch, “I do believe that I’m due to go to the library. So, bye!”

\--

Really, the surprises kept coming and coming. He most definitely had not been expecting the one and only _Drew Tanaka,_ popular girl supreme to be in the library. Actually _reading_. For their English project. Something that he hadn’t done. Well, she was about ten pages in, but that was still more progress than Nico had made.

Truthfully, Nico wouldn’t have cared, but it was one thing to be one of the people not doing any work on a group project and another to be the only person not doing anything.

She looked up, noticing him. She frowned before tapping the seat next to her. He fumbled for a bit before realizing that she wanted him to sit by him, so he did. Hopefully, this time, it was not one of Piper and Jason’s schemes. 

“Hi,” he said plainly. 

Drew looked amused, a faint smile on her lips that would probably make any straight guy fall out of his seat and weep for mercy. “Didn’t expect you here, di Angelo,” she whispered.

“You either.” Nico winced. “Sorry, that was really stereotypical.”

“It’s fine, I wouldn’t be here if I had the choice. I’m guessing Solace ranted to you about the importance of us all working together on this thing, too?” 

Something pulled at him about the fact that Will had talked to Drew, but not him. Which was weird, considering he didn’t even _want_ Will to talk to him. “No, actually. I just needed an excuse to get away from Piper and Jason.”

“Oh.” Drew made a face. “Makes sense.” There was a bit of silence. “Y’know, the book isn’t half bad. I think maybe you should give it a shot. Wanna read it with me? So we don’t fail and have Will trying to kill us, of course.”

Nico bit back a smile. “Of course.”

He pulled out his own copy of The Fault in Our Stars, which was almost completely unused, from his backpack. They sat beside each other and read.

“Hm, Augustus seems pretty hot,” Drew spoke up. 

“He is,” Nico agreed. “Like, I don’t care if he’s not my type, if he said some of that stupid philosophical metaphor crap, I would make out with him on the spot.” 

“Not if I beat you to it.”

Nico snorted, quickly covering his mouth before the librarian kicked him out for good. A pair of guys a few tables down looked their direction. He ducked his head down. 

Drew doggy eared her page, an action that would probably make many people Nico knew claw their hair out in frustration. “So, your house is the last one on the left of the street, right?”

“Um, yes?” How did she know that? Better question, why did she need to know that? “Why?”

“For tomorrow, obviously. I can’t just show up to a random house, can I?” She flipped her glossy black hair over her shoulder as if it was simple.

Except, of course, the fact that Nico didn’t have anything planned for tomorrow. Maybe her parents were one of his dad’s friends, he reasoned. “Oh, yeah. Of course.”

“Ugh, I’m so bored. Really, who spends a Saturday in a library?” She started to get up. “I’m leaving, want me to drop you off?” 

“Huh? Oh, actually, I have something I need to do,” Nico said. He had almost completely forgotten why he had come in the first place. Drew shrugged and waved bye. He waved back, and then got out a piece of paper and a pencil. 

\--

Sundays were supposed to be fun. And by fun, that meant Nico got to sleep in as long as he wanted and not have to do anything. Knowing his luck, he didn’t get to do that either.

It was around eleven when the doorbell rang. Hazel, being the strangely productive person she was, was already dressed. But obviously, his father had made _him_ answer the door.

“Mhm, who is it?” he said, opening it, still rubbing his eyes because the weekend was meant for _sleep_. He froze.

“Okay, so definitely the right house,” Drew Tanaka said, covering her laugh.

Will Solace looked at him with an amused smile. “Seems like you know how to dress for brunch.”

Nico stared at them, his mouth open in shock. Drew was wearing a pretty turquoise sundress, and Will was wearing a light blue button-down with plain black jeans. In other words, they were _not_ wearing their sister’s shorts and a bright rainbow tie-dye t-shirt.

“Um, brunch? Since when are we having brunch?” Brunch was stupid, a fake meal used to make Nico have to eat more than he usually did, which wasn’t a lot. So he most definitely had not invited anyone for brunch.

“Yeah, you texted us yesterday morning. Remember?” Drew said, raising an eyebrow. Will seemed occupied in staring at his fingernails.

  
“Me? Um.” Yesterday morning, he had been with Reyna, who visited about once every millennium. The only person who could’ve used his phone was.. “Excuse me real quick,” he said, closing the door for a second. “ _Hazel!”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahh it's so short because i messed up my outline SO SO BAD, but i have plans for the next chapter! by 'plans' i mean different povs, so yay(?)


	4. don't even get me STARTED

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's been 11 days since i've posted wow I'm a terrible person, i rewrote this chapter about a gazillion times because WRITER'S BLOCK and ughhh I'm so sorry i already have the next one planned out-ish so hopefully it will be out soon

Hazel had a plan. Like, an Annabeth-worthy plan. It was simple, really. First, she had gotten Reyna to take her brother on a “screen-free hike,” something that Nico would never do unless it were with Reyna. That was easy, all she had to do was bribe her with hot chocolate.

Then, she had figured out his password. He seriously needed to change it. His birthday, really? Anyone could go into his phone if they wanted to.

After that, she had messaged Will and Drew both separately, using the excuse of brunch to get her much too brother to make some friends, at the very least. She then proceeded to suggest that they stayed until lunch as well, to get Nico to actually eat for once. Texting as Nico was also easy, she just had to be awkward and vaguely sound annoyed the whole time.

It was supposed to go well, but there were some… unforeseen complications. That were totally  _ not  _ her fault, for the record. 

\--

It began on Sunday morning. When Nico had come out of his room wearing the most stupid outfit imaginable. He had probably just grabbed the first things he saw, but somehow he managed to put on a pair of shorts that were  _ hers  _ and a tie-dye rainbow t-shirt Jason had gotten him as a joke that he had specifically promised to never wear.

About a few minutes before they were supposed to come, she finally spoke up.

“What... what are you wearing?” 

He shrugged. “It’s not like anybody’s going to see me.”

The  _ one  _ day she had planned all this out, he decided to wear something other than his usual all-black, plain, everyday clothes. Hazel wanted to strangle him. “Still, someone could still come.” 

“I could care less, really.” 

Hazel was struck with an urge to bonk him upside the head. 

“Oh,” she said. “How’d you get my shorts?”

Nico looked down, as if just realizing what he was wearing. “Hm, weird.” Hazel narrowed her eyes as she saw the faintest tint of red on his cheeks. Whatever circumstances had led to him acquiring her clothes, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

“Yeah, it’s weird, all right.” She took a deep breath to prevent herself from banging her forehead repeatedly on the wall.

“Anyways,” he said, clearing his throat, “what are we doing today?”

“I dunno.”

Nico stared at her. “You look weird.”

“Says you.”

He rolled his eyes. “Hilarious.” He looked as if he was going to launch into Protective Big Brother Mode sometime soon. “Everything okay at school?” 

“Yup.” School wasn’t too bad. “I mean, everyone’s been talking about me and Frank, but it could be worse,” she said absentmindedly.

  
  
“Frank? Who’s Frank?” 

Hazel paled as she realized what she had done. “Oh no. Nico, no no no, not again. I swear. Frank’s a nice guy. And we’re not even together or anything.” 

“Are you absolutely positively sure?” She remembered what had happened between Nico and her last boyfriend, poor Frank didn’t deserve any of that. She could already see the image of tiny Nico trying to yell at Frank who was twice his size and at least half a foot taller. It was disturbing. 

“He’s my friend, Neeks. Not every guy I talk to is trying to whisk me away from you.” She raised an eyebrow. “But then again, I’m always willing to beat up any guy who breaks your heart if I need to as well.”

Nico laughed. Hazel smiled. Ah, what lovely sibling bonding. 

Then, the doorbell rang.

\--

On Saturday, Will was having a perfectly normal day. He had reheated last night’s pizza for breakfast and was Skyping his half-sister to argue about biology homework.

“Number 10 is B, William, you absolute idiot,” Kayla was saying as she stuffed an unholy amount of Cheetos into her mouth.

“No, it’s not. It’s very obviously A, stupid.” He made a face. “You’re going to get a heart disease if you keep eating like that.”

She shrugged. “At least I get to eat chips before I die. Anyways, it’s clearly about the cardiovascular system, not the nervous.”

“It talks about the spinal cord!”

“But it also talks about arteries!”

He huffed. “This is such a poorly written question, let’s just agree on that. You put whatever you want, I’ll put whatever I want, and we’ll see who’s right after you fail. Moving on to number 11.”

Kayla rolled her eyes, tucking back a strand of ginger-green hair as she read through the next question. “C,” she said, almost immediately.

“C,” Will agreed. He frowned as his phone lit up with a notification. “Hold on, someone just texted me.”

“Who?” she asked, leaning her face closer to the computer screen than necessary. Will swatted his hand dismissively. 

“No, shut up.” He unlocked the phone.

_ <nico> hey will _

_ <nico> solace* stupid autocorrect _

“I dunno,” Will said, trying not to smile as he started to reply. 

“Woah, what’s that look?”

“What look?”

Kayla poked the screen. “ _ That  _ look. You’re either constipated or really, really happy, and I’m willing to bet it’s the latter, so who is it?”

_ <me> and here i was thinking we were on a first-name basis, nico _

_ <me> *di angelo, i mean _

“What do you mean ‘who is it’? It’s just one of my friends.”

She tutted. “Really? Then I’m sure you won’t mind telling me who it is.”

He stuck his tongue out at her. “Hmph. Fine. You know Nico di Angelo?”

“Super broody, Italian, and tiny?” He rolled his eyes at her description. “Yup.” She frowned in thought. “Hm, you two would be pretty cute together. I approve.”

“Oh, shut up.”

_ <nico> hahaha so funny _

_ <nico> not _

_ <nico> you’re coming to my house tomorrow for brunch, and you’re staying for lunch _   


_ <nico> and don’t even try to get out of it _

“Hey Kales,” Will said, furrowing his eyebrows. “Is brunch a real thing? I thought it was just a rich people thing in like, movies and stuff. Definitely didn’t have it in Texas.”

“First of all, I thought we agreed to never call me that. And, um, I dunno? I think it’s… a fancy snack.”

“Oh. So if I was invited to brunch, how would I dress?”

Kayla thought about it for a few seconds. “Like, um, half-casual, half-formal, maybe? I’m thinking somewhere along the lines of a straight guy at Thanksgiving dinner.”

Will frowned. “Okay. Okay, I can do that. I think.”

_ <me> i wouldn’t dare try to get out of it _

“I better be invited to the wedding.” She grinned evilly as Will glared at her. “Bye Will! If you do something dumb, I’ll be here to laugh at you!” She hung up, nearly spilling her entire bowl of Cheetos before he could even say anything.

“How rude.”

\--

Hazel Levesque was very good at making people feel welcome, Will learned. Very much unlike her brother, who (after changing into leggings and a hoodie) kept glaring at the wall and muttering angrily. Will sincerely hoped he wasn’t the one he was mad at, because despite his small size, Nico di Angelo was still  _ very  _ scary.

Turns out, brunch was not a fancy snack. Aside from the waiters and chefs (but they were compliments of Hazel and Nico’s dad), there was nothing particularly ‘fancy’ about the fact that the two siblings had decided to not talk to each other, leaving Will and Drew in a rather awkward position.

“So,” Hazel said, smiling at Will as they sat down in a strangely formal dining room. “How are you?”

“Me?” he asked, blinking. She nodded. Will felt stupid, obviously she was talking to him. Drew and Nico were sitting on the complete other side, though occasionally they’d look back before quickly turning around and laughing. “I’m good, I guess.”

“Okay.” She pointed to his plate of fruit. “That’s.. healthy.”

He looked between her piled-up plate of dessert and Nico’s less-than-half of a pomegranate. “I take it that eating properly isn’t a common thing here.”

She snorted. “Nope. We like to live life on the edge here.” She rolled her eyes. “Though he’s worse than me.”

“Mhm.” He scratched his neck awkwardly. “So, why are you two not on speaking terms right now?”

“Because,” Hazel said, rather triumphantly, “I invited you two over.” Will choked on a watermelon slice. She patted his back. 

“Oh.  _ Oh.”  _ He felt immensely stupid. “That makes a lot of sense, actually. Obviously he wouldn’t actually text me, that was dumb.”

Hazel looked at him blankly, as if he was an idiot, which he already knew. “Sure, sure, we’ll go with that.” She rolled her eyes. She mumbled something about “staring at his phone all day”, that Will couldn’t decipher. “But, I mean, yeah, he’s a complete chicken. The only reason he even has friends at all is because of Jason, and don’t even get me started on how  _ they  _ met.”

Will frowned as he finished the last of the (not choked-up) watermelon. Was this how awkward Nico had felt when Lou Ellen and Cecil had pulled that move on Friday?

“Jason’s... cool. I guess.”

Truthfully, the only reason he knew Jason Grace was because of Piper, who also happened to have an aspiration of becoming Will’s official wingman. Completely unrelated to that matter, he also happened to be Nico di Angelo’s best friend.

“Solace, would you mind telling that person beside you, who I am not related to in the slightest, what she’s plotting,” Nico said to him from the other side of the room. Will was vaguely reminded of playing Telephone when he was younger.

“Um, what are we doing?” he asked Hazel.

She smirked at her brother before announcing very loudly, “We’re watching Tangled.”

Apparently, this seemed to break the veil of silence between her and Nico because he stared at her dead-on. “No. We are not.”

“Yes. We are.” She pointed to Drew. “Thoughts on Flynn Rider?”

“Smoking.”

Nico scooted away, looking appalled. “Are you kidding?” He shook his head. “Hazel, did you plan this?”

Will smiled, deciding that it would be best to not say anything else.

-

Nico was pretty proud of himself for managing not to rip his hair out and hide out in his room Really, the brief ignoring-his-sister was pretty tame, he thought.

In all honesty, he didn’t mind  _ people.  _ He just minded  _ meeting  _ people. There was this whole unwritten rule that you need to spill out your entire life if you were going to meet someone. Well, he had  _ known  _ Drew since he was ten years old. But there was a difference between knowing and  _ knowing.  _

So he had appreciated how much she talked, filling up the silence with her stories and jokes. She reminded him of Piper, in a weird way, never letting anything get too boring or awkward. So, yeah, things were going okay.

But of course Hazel had to bring  _ it  _ up.

Despite Nico’s objection (that bordered on full out begging), she popped the disk into the movie player. Somehow, Drew and Hazel managed to take up the L-shaped couch (that, mind you, was supposed to be able to seat six people). So, as should have been expected from his sister’s evil-doing, he ended up having to share the loveseat with the one and only Will Solace.

  
After Jules-Albert had given them all huge bags of popcorn, which Nico was most definitely not going to eat, Will finally said something. “I don’t get it. What do you have against Tangled?”

Nico sighed. Really? “Because, Hazel seems to think that if you have even the faintest attraction to guys, you are morally obliged to think Flynn Rider is attractive.” Will looked confused. Nico felt no need to explain that the beginning of Hazel’s whole theory had started when he was still hung up over Percy, and he was just stubborn.

“Is she wrong?”

“Of course.”

He shrugged. “I mean,  _ I  _ don’t disagree with her.”

It took Nico a while to process what Will had said. He may or may not have made a weird squeaky sound in realization. “Wait. Wait.  _ Wait. _ ” He put his hands over his face. “I can’t believe you.” He threw a piece of popcorn at him. “You just came out to  _ agree with my sister. _ ”

Will blinked, before realizing what he had said. “Oh. Oh yeah. I did.”

Nico glared at him. “This is the exact reason I’m moving out.”

Will looked at him in surprise. “You’re  _ what?  _ Since when are you moving away?” 

_ He thinks you’re not staying and he’s  _ upset,  _ moron, what do you think that means?  _ said a tiny voice in the back of his head that sounded eerily like Piper’s.

“I never said I was moving away. I said I was moving  _ out _ . As in, out of my house, and then staying in a stupidly small apartment with my best friend for the rest of our senior year and hopefully college.” He smiled a little. 

“Oh- hold on. What is that?” Will touched the corner of his lip. “You’re  _ smiling.  _ I didn’t think that was even an expression you could make.” Nico swatted his hand away, silently thankful that his dad had invested in such thick curtains because if Will could see his face, it would look redder than the pomegranate juice on his shirt (shush). “Okay, okay. So.. I’m assuming that means Jason?”

“Mhm. He made this.. stupid promise in like, what, middle school? I think so, anyways, it was just this stupid joke, and he said that even if we have uber-rich dads or whatever, we were  _ still  _ going to get that whole ramen noodle, cheap couch, working part-time college experience. And then a few days ago, he texted me an apartment whose owners are just  _ dying  _ to sell, and we’re planning on moving in sometime during fall break. So yeah.”

“I think that’s the most I’ve ever heard you say at once without any snark, what a milestone for us.” 

_ Us?  _ Us?  _ Stop overthinking this before you do something dumb. _

“Uh-huh, stop sitting so close to me, Solace.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i love writing sibling dynamics if you can't tell


	5. whipped

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i had way too much fun with this

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoa i posted on time

Piper had a problem. 

Well, technically, it wasn’t  _ hers _ , but she was so deeply invested in it at this point that it might as well have been. 

“He was disappointed this morning, I’m telling you,” she was saying. “Will, come on, you don’t seriously think that he hates your guts.”

Will, who was currently pouting in front of her in his bed, groaned. “He  _ does,  _ Pipes. I don’t know why you would think a stupid letter that he doesn’t even know is from me proves otherwise.”

“Yes, because I’m sure he would put up with you for eight years because he hates you. Nico’s not subtle.”  _ At all. But you just don’t notice.  _ “If he has a problem with someone, he makes sure they know it.”

“I’m pretty sure he has.”

Piper threw a pillow at him. “That’s how he talks to everyone. Even Jason doesn’t get any special treatment.” He made a face. 

“Does  _ Jason  _ know about our whole dilemma as well?” he asked, putting an emphasis on ‘Jason’ for reasons unknown. Or maybe that was just Piper. 

“No, if he did, Nico would already know about ‘our whole dilemma’. His puppy dog eyes are almost as bad as Percy’s, Jason would most definitely cave. Hazel knows though.”   
  


“What?”

She rolled her eyes. “Hazel won’t tell. Why else would she invite you over?”

“She said it was to make friends! Drew was there too!”

Piper scowled. “ _ Drew? _ ” She was definitely not a big fan of  _ that  _ name. “Nico didn’t tell me anything about-”

Will stared at her, eyes wide. “He talked to you about yesterday?” He buried his face in the pillow she had thrown at him. “Oh my  _ god _ , I am so screwed. Did he talk about me?”

_ Yes, just not in the way that you think.  _ “Um, yes. He said something about you coming out just to be annoying..? But anyway, I think you getting screwed is what we’re aiming for.” She sighed as he glared at her. “Fine. Too early. But I swear it wasn’t anything bad.” Seriously, she knew that love made people a little near-sighted but  _ come on.  _

“He called me  _ annoying _ .” 

“You’ve known each other for 8 years,” she pointed out. She  _ could  _ just tell them about each other's feelings, but that was their own thing to work out. “Now, give me his note.”

Will raised his hands up in innocence. “Why would I just have his note with me?”

“It’s in the front pocket of your backpack.”

He sighed and made a show of getting it out. “For you, m’lady.”

She smiled happily as she read through it, Will reading over her shoulder with a dorky grin on his face even though he’d probably already read it about a million times.

_ hi panicky person _

_ i feel like you have no place to complain in this arrangement considering the fact that I CAN ONLY READ WHAT YOU WRITE ON DAYS THAT WE’RE IN SCHOOL. so i doubt you being happy to go to the library is as bad as me looking happy whenever i look in my locker. it’s a paradox, teenagers are not supposed to smile at school, ever. _

_ you’ll find, i hope, that i am not as much of an idiot as some people claim, i swear, and it’s pretty obvious, because the only other option is you being a stalker and i don’t get enough letters from you to prove that you are.  _

_ don’t ever underestimate will solace is something i’ve learned, even though he may be a little brat more than three-quarters of the time (he is, in fact, the owner of said number-i-can-barely-read). i swear this handwriting is so familiar, but im not stalker-ish enough to memorize my friends’ handwriting, unfortunately. _

_ you have a good day too :) _

“Will, you are officially whipped for this boy,” Piper said as he let out a dreamy sigh.

“How can you  _ not  _ be? He even drew out a colon and a parenthesis instead of a normal smiley face. If that isn’t adorable, I don’t know what is.”

Piper smirked. “Mhm, mhm. Whipped.” He rolled his eyes at her. “You are most definitely writing to him. He looked so sad this morning because his weird stalker friend didn’t write to him. So, start talking, lover boy.”

Will sighed  _ again _ . “Okay,” he said. As if she was actually doubting he would. Making Nico sad on purpose was probably a straight gateway to eternal damnation in The Book Of Will.

Piper grabbed a sheet of paper (pink this time, just to spice it up) and a black pen. 

“You may continue.”

-

_ good morning _

_ firstly please please don’t be mad at me for not answering earlier, just had to sort something out  _ (“Liar.” “Shut up!”)  _ and i kind of forgot-ish. _

_ but yes, my dear pen pal,  _ (“Future boyfriend,” Piper muttered.)  _ i suppose you are somewhat right considering that the library is already a happy place compared to the absolute hell _ _ that is a high school hallway. _

_ hm, i acknowledge the fact that you may be a not-idiot  _ (“I messed up, Pipes, you didn’t  _ have  _ to write it exactly how I said it.”)  _ but when it comes to some things, you are. a lot of things actually. _

_ is he really that bad  _ (“Smooth, William.”) _ , i mean i believe i’ve seen him before but he didn’t seem too bad. kind of cute, actually  _ (“Don’t look at me like that, Pipes.”)  _ but you do you.  _ (“I’m cringing.”)  _ and i do believe you not finding out who is currently writing this is a success on my part. she is, in fact, very  _ (“Annoying and tiresome,” Will had originally said.)  _ amazing and delightful. _

_ :) _

-

Half an hour later, Piper sighed contentedly, leaning back on the chair and biting into one of the heavenly cookies Naomi Solace had made for them. “Is your mom even  _ human _ ? This is, like, the food of the gods.”

Will nodded solemnly. “I know.”

She turned to face him again. “Okay, so I have an idea.”   
  
“Oh no.”   
  
She slapped his arm. “Shut up, my ideas aren’t that bad.” He gave her a look. “Excluding the Boating Incident of 2011, which does not count because we all agreed it never happened. Anyway, my dad is filming King of Sparta 2, and I might cry if I see another poster.”

“I might too,” Will said, grinning. “Your dad is way too hot for a dad.”

“Ew, so I’m gonna pretend you never said that. But that means, of course, that I’m home alone, except for the house staff, duh, and that means.. A party.”

“A party. A cliche high school party.”

“I’ll keep it PG. But  _ still _ , it’d be so much fun! Like, right before fall break, because then everybody will have time to get over their hangovers.” Will crossed his arms. “Okay,  _ fine _ , no alcohol, killjoy. But if someone happens to spike anything, it is  _ not  _ my fault.”

“This already screams ‘bad idea’. And parties have witnesses, unlike the Boating Incident.” 

Piper shuddered. “It  _ won’t  _ go down like.. that. Jeez, people have these parties like every week. Plus, it’s senior year, we’re supposed to live a little.”

Will took the last cookie, and Piper was tempted to steal it from him. “You’re going to do it anyway.”

“Well, yeah. I wasn’t asking for your  _ permission _ , Will, I was  _ inviting _ you.”

He pretended to look annoyed. “Hm, I might think about it.”   
  


“Oh, you are  _ so  _ going,” she said, grinning evilly, reaching out as if she was going to give him a hug.

“Stop tickling me, we’re not seven!” Will complained, laughing as she practically climbed on top of him.

“You don’t stand a chance of stopping me!”

-

Facetiming Drew at eight in the morning was not Nico’s ideal Tuesday. He didn’t have anything against Drew, just  _ mornings.  _ Gross. 

They had gone to the mall yesterday, as if Mondays weren’t bad enough, because Nico had done the stupidest thing ever and told her about the letters from his weird pen pal friend, or the lack thereof.

And now, here he was, taking fashion advice.

“Why did we even  _ buy  _ this?” Nico said, scrunching his nose up at an annoyingly yellow sweatshirt. “I don’t even look good in yellow.”

Drew snorted. She was somehow managing to do her nails while choosing out an outfit for him at the same time. And she hadn’t even splotched the nail polish. Nico wondered what kind of sorcery she had to pull that off. “Darling, just because you don’t own anything that isn’t black doesn’t mean you don’t look good in it.”

“But it’s  _ yellow _ .”

“Will likes yellow,” she said calmly. The worst part was Nico hadn’t even  _ told _ her about the Big Crush he had. She had just found out, which was scary. “And I am getting you two dorks together if it’s the last thing I do.”

Nico frowned at the sweatshirt. “Hmph. I still don’t get why you think Will would like me.”

Drew paused in her nail-painting to stare at him long and hard. “Because I happen to have  _ eyes _ . I half-expected him to kiss you on the spot. And can we talk about  _ lunch _ ? He was looking at you more longingly than at his pizza.”

“Well, he was talking to me. If he didn’t look at me while we were having a conversation, that’d just be rude.”

“Oh my god, he could shove his tongue down your throat and you would still call it being polite,” Drew said with a huff. He was starting to regret ever telling her about the whole situation.

“Yeah, but he  _ wouldn’t  _ do that.” He looked between the five pairs of black jeans they had bought yesterday. “Which jeans?”

“The skinny ripped ones.”

“They’re  _ all  _ ripped. And skinny.”

“The least ripped one.” She smirked. “Don’t want to give him a heart attack just yet.”

Nico rolled his eyes and picked up the pair she was talking about. “I think  _ I  _ might have a heart attack. It’d be really helpful so I wouldn’t have to go to school.”

“No, you look too cute to not go to school.” She put her nailpolish away, apparently done. “Hm, I think I might do your makeup before class starts. I did it for Mitchell, and just look at him and Connor, they’re adorable-” 

“Oh no, my audio is breaking up,” he deadpanned, ending the call before she got any more ideas.

He was never going to hear the end of this from Piper.

-

“Okay,” Piper whisper-yelled. “The, uh, thing is in the… place.”

Will had no idea why she was trying to use code words. “You can talk normally, nobody’s looking at us.”

Piper looked around, eyes narrowed. “Hm, can never be too careful.”

“We are literally standing in front of Nico’s locker after very sloppily slipping a note inside. I think we already have failed at being careful.”

“Fair enough. Jason and Nico should be here any second now,” she said, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “And then we get to invite them to the official Solace-McLean pre-break senior party, woo-hoo!” She frowned. “Should we change the name? It’s kind of long.”

“No, it’s perfect.”

“And you say  _ I’m  _ the dork.” She elbowed him playfully.

He was going to argue that they  _ both  _ were when a tall blond figure holding some brightly colored object stopped in front of them with a huge grin. “Hi guys,” Jason said, drawing out the ‘hi’ so much it seemed suspicious.

“Hey.” Piper squinted at the weird bundle in Jason’s arms. She put her hands over her mouth. “Oh my  _ god,  _ is that..?”

“Shut  _ up _ ,” the bundle said, groaning as it hid its head (?) in Jason’s chest. “I hate this so much.”   


“Put him down so we can see him,” Piper said, laughing. 

“No,” said the bundle. “Jason Grace, if you put me down, I will shove a stapler up your mouth and you’ll have another scar to match the other one, I  _ swear _ .”

“Nicooo,” Piper complained. “Please, you look bright and sunshiny, please please please!”

“I’m putting him down now, if he kills me, please remove him from my will.”

Jason tried to let go, but Nico stayed firmly latched on to him. “I  _ will  _ cry, and you will feel so bad for me that you’ll die of guilt and pure misery.”

“You don’t sound so threatening right now,” Jason said.

“Maybe we should pull him off?” Will suggested, trying to keep himself from laughing too hard.

“Maybe we shouldn’t do that?” Nico said, quickly unattaching himself from Jason. “Happy?” 

“Aw, you look so cute,” Piper said, a very-watered down version of Will’s own thoughts. She whistled. “Did you buy those pants or were they painted on?”

“That was the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard you say,” he said, his face turning red. “Why are you even waiting by my locker?”

“Because…” Piper gestured to Will. “Would you like to do the honors of answering that question?”

He looked at her. “I- what? Oh,  _ that  _ reason.” He turned to Nico and Jason with jazz hands. “We wanted to invite you two, yes both of you, to the one, the only, Solace-McLean pre-break senior party!”

“Woo-hoo!” Piper added helpfully.

“Woo-hoo!” Jason agreed. 

“You guys sound like Sims. Also, a party seems like a really bad idea.”

“That’s what Will said too, but I changed his mind,” Piper said innocently. Will nodded. He officially had a tickle-phobia, he was sure of it.

“Text me the details, and I’ll think about it,” Nico said, opening his locker. A piece of paper promptly fell on his head. Piper grinned.

“What’s that?” Will said, trying not to sound too suspicious. 

“Oh, that, uh, that’s an old test paper, right, Neeks?” 

“Yeah, yeah, you could say that,” Nico said absentmindedly. Will swore his heart stopped beating at the tiny smile on his face just then.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the fact that they're both too wimpy to ask for each other's numbers for EIGHT YEARS says a lot


	6. lets not with william

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ok so school's going to start soon and so my updating schedule (pfft like i have one) is gonna be more hectic than usual so i felt like posting literally anything so yea :/

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> also tfios spoilers but im pretty sure everyone knows it so idk  
> and i tried a new format so that i could show the letters without trying to put them in a scene bc im very very bad at doing that so lets see how this goes

_ good whatever-time-it-is-when-you-find-this _

_ i wouldnt be mad first of all, because i dont know if you realize this but you were the one who wrote to me in the first place, so i cant be mad, though i must say, i’m getting way too emotionally invested in a piece of paper (no offense) which i blame partly on my friends. _

_ thank you for saying that i’m right, since most people seem to be on a streak to try to prove me wrong on absolutely everything. also maybe i should stake out the library to see if i can find you, hm, depends on how petty im feeling. _

_ i am deeply offended about the fact that i’ve just been called an idiot by a person who used the word-not-word ‘not-idiot’. or maybe it could be a word, you should coin it. technically all words are just like fanfictions of the alphabet, aren’t they?  _ _ ive been spending way too much time with jason if i really just wrote that. _

_ and lets NOT with william. he may be painfully endearing at times, but nonetheless still a complete moron at others.  _

_ now i believe i need to keep a track of all of the handwritings of any female i have ever talked to because of that not-so-hinty hint. if i wasn’t feeling lazy, i might, we’ll have to see where it goes. _

_ also i am henceforth claiming that smiley face, it is mine, and you must pay me to use it, thank you. _

-

_ hi again (it was afternoon, by the way), _

_ emotionally invested? that’s intriguing, hm? _

_ i doubt anyone would ever disagree that school was anything other than horrible. learning is great and all but school itself really sucks. and maybe you are just wrong on those things, you never know. _

_ also please do not ever do that. ever. id probably die about ten times. so no. no stake outs. _

_ that alphabet fanfiction is really, really scary to think about, god. but maybe i will coin not-idiot, or not because i never actually meant to say it. however you cannot coin a smiley face. smiley faces are universal, thats like putting tariffs on written happiness. _

_ i strongly suspect i would get killed for saying this up front, but for the record, i think you looked really cute yesterday, didn’t know you had it in you (or your closet). _

_ :) haha i used it _

-

Nico knew he was in trouble when Will and Piper made a group chat. His phone had nearly gotten taken away by the sheer amount of notifications popping up. But he was determined not to reply. He was not going to add fuel to their fire, nuh-uh. 

“Jason, please, please just kill me and get this over with,” he muttered in geography. He hated geography. Geography was stupid, and Mrs. Gaea was half asleep the whole time anyway. However, this time, he was not complaining about the class itself.

“No thanks.” Jason rolled his eyes. “Just put it on silent.”

“Not because of that, stupid. I’m talking about how excited Piper and Will are getting about this horrible, horrible party that I was going to say no to. But Piper printed out  _ flyers  _ during lunch.  _ Flyers _ , this is serious.”

“I know. I was there.”

“I can’t do it anymore, Jason. It’s only Wednesday, I’m too young to die.”

“That sounds great.”

“Even Percy and Annabeth called me to ask about it last night. And they’re in  _ California _ .”

“Mhm. Yup, California.”

“That’s like, on the other side of the country.”

“Cool.”

“Can you  _ believe  _ that?”

“Uh-huh.”

Nico blinked at Jason, who was looking amused. “It’s not  _ funny _ . This is serious,” he repeated.

“Percy and Annabeth’s fall break starts earlier than ours. They’re going to come anyway. New Rome is super laid-back, dude.”

“New Rome is most definitely not laid-back. Reyna came out of it,” he muttered. They had had an ongoing debate about which university was better. “I love her and all but she’s scary at times. And by that I mean always.”

“People who come out of New Athens aren’t the same either,” Jason pointed out. “Unfortunately, that’s the one I got a scholarship to, so I guess I’m stuck with you.” He ruffled Nico’s hair.

“I think it’s the other way around, really.”

“You say that as if you’d want it any other way.”

“I think New Athens is way better,” Connor Stoll spoke up from somewhere behind them. Jason shot him a death glare and slammed his hand down in front of his desk. Travis looked at him weirdly. “Uh.”

“Shut up,” he said, turning back to face the front. Connor looked confused.

“Did you just give him one of Piper’s flyers?” Nico asked. “Oh my  _ god _ . You need to stop egging her on.”

“Dude, I’m dyslexic,” Connor said. He pointed to Nico. “I know you’ll say that he is too, but he went to a military school.” Jason just shrugged nonchalantly.

If Nico hadn’t been so busy laughing, he might have realized that inviting a Stoll to anything was a very, very bad idea.

-

It was around 6 in the evening when Will got the call. Nico’s name lit up the screen. He answered it, frowning at the sound of crying from the other side.

“I hate you I hate you I hate you,  _ oh my god, what is this, Will?”  _

“Um, are you okay? Do I need to-”

“No, I’m going to yell at you from my phone because if I actually see you, I might hit you,” Nico said shakily. “I can’t believe you, you said there  _ would be a happy ending _ .” He sniffled. “This is  _ not  _ a happy ending. I hate you I hate this I hate my life.”

Will’s brain short-circuited because he had absolutely no idea what was happening. “Um-”

“You know what, I’m leaving New York, I’m going to live with Reyna and then we’ll run away together and eat ice-cream to wash away my sadness and then we’ll buy a little apartment in some city no one knows.”

“Can I just ask-”

“Nuh-uh, you don’t get to talk, I’m mad at you.” He stopped. “Actually I have nothing more to say, so you can.”

“Okay, first of all, what?”

“Don’t you ‘what’ me, you said they’d live happily ever after and blah blah blah. That does not include Gus  _ dying _ .” Nico choked out the last sentence as if he still couldn’t believe it.

Will laughed. “Oh, I completely forgot I said that. You never said you would actually read the book.” He barely remembered when he had said it, about a week or two ago, when he’d been trying to convince Nico to actually read for English.

“Yeah, well, I did. And I ran out of ice-cream.”

“Your fridge is as big as my closet.”

“Shut up.”

Will smiled. “So, do you want me to take you to for ice cream?”

There was silence on the other side, followed by a “Hazel, be quiet.” Nico cleared his throat. “Well, you owe me one, so I believe so.”

“Well, your house is like, ten minutes away, so I suggest you change if you’re wearing Hazel’s clothes again.”

Nico made a noise that sounded a lot like a strangled parrot.“We are going to not talk about that. Hurry up so I can get back to crying.” 

He nodded, before remembering Nico couldn’t  _ see  _ him. “Okay, then. See you.” 

"Yup. Now hang up so you can get in your car."

"Will do.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes this whole chapter was a build up for a date-not-date next chapter so :)  
> i also dunno if you've noticed but i suck at chapter titles   
> but yea  
> jasico friendship makes me die inside   
> stay safe everyone love you <3


	7. the date-not-date

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> procrastination hit hard with this one

Will didn’t think there was anything wrong with his choice in music. Apparently, Nico di Angelo begged to differ. 

“This is country,” he was saying, clutching onto the box of tissues Will had brought for him (because ~~he happened to be head over heels~~ he liked to be considerate, okay?). “I can’t believe you listen to country.”

“I grew up in Texas.” 

“Hmph, where are we going?”

“We’re getting fro-yo.”

Nico pouted - Will had to look away so as to not veer his car off the road - before blowing his nose into a tissue. “That’s not ice-cream,” he noted very intelligently. He put the tissue into an empty cup holder, just to be annoying. “Nobody cries over the deaths of fictional characters over frozen yogurt. Gelato, maybe. But not frozen yogurt.”

Will snorted. “That was so painfully Italian, I don’t know what to say. Also, you don't seem like you've been crying much, hm?”

Nico suddenly looked uncharacteristically flustered at that. If he didn't value his life, Will might've asked. “And your Spotify playlist is so painfully Southern, _I_ don’t know what to say.”

“Touche.” He frowned. “Are you gonna buy me a new cup holder?”

  
“I could buy you a new  _ car _ . My dad doesn’t care, really. Though Hazel would probably-” Nico started to say something else but then apparently decided not to, pink dusting his cheeks. Will remembered that Piper had said she’d told Hazel that he may or may not be in love with her brother. Did Nico know that?  _ No, he wouldn’t be talking to me if he did.  _ “Nevermind. Are we there yet?”

“Almost. And my car is fine, by the way. But you’re  _ definitely  _ cleaning the cup holder.” Nico shrugged.

“Sure. What’s this super special place called then?” 

“Delphi’s. They even have a little baked goods section. It’s like basically the best thing ever. You’ll love it. Me and Katie used to go there all the time.”

Nico’s expression changed. “Katie. As in Katie Gardner, your ex-girlfriend?” 

Will winced. He needed to stop being  _ so obvious _ . He’d basically just said ‘oh yeah, I went here on dates with my girlfriend, and now I’m going with you.’  _ This is not a date, Will. Not a date, not a date, not a date.  _ “Mhm.” 

“That sounds fun.” Nico seemed to sink into his seat and didn’t say anything else. 

Will was grateful as he pulled into a parking space a few minutes later, since Nico still was being awkward due to his immense act of Screwing Up.

“We’re here,” he said after a couple of seconds of just sitting there. Nico stared at him like he was stupid. 

“Really, I thought you just parked in the middle of the road.”

“No need to get sassy, di Angelo,” Will said, sticking his tongue out at him. Nico pouted again, which made Will  _ really  _ glad he wasn’t driving because he might’ve killed both of them by crashing into a tree or something. “You’re pouting,” he said, for some stupid reason.

“I don’t  _ pout _ . I- stop laughing! I  _ don’t _ pout!” Nico complained, his lips jutting out even more.

“You’re doing it right now. This is hilarious.”

‘

Nico huffed. “I’m leaving.” He proceeded to get out the car, the effect being dulled greatly by how gently he closed the car door.

Will laughed again and got out himself. “I think we’re supposed to go inside.”

“This better be good.”

“We could always go back,” he joked.

Nico rolled his eyes. “I did not just go through twenty minutes of driving with you and your terrible music to not get ice-cream.”

Will clutched a hand to his chest. “I can’t believe you. Also, it’s technically not ice-cream.”

“Also, it technically is.”

He opened the door, the bell above it ringing cheerily. 

“Will!” someone shouted excitedly. Will blinked in confusion at the sight of his half-sister behind the counter.

“Um, Kayla? Why are you here?” 

She patted the apron that he hadn’t noticed she was wearing. “I told you I started working here like a  _ week  _ ago.” He most definitely did not remember, but he decided not to say that. “And Nico! Hi!”

Nico smiled at her, his eyebrows still furrowed as he tried to make sense of what was going on. Will didn’t blame him. “Hi. You’re Kayla. He’s your.. brother?”

Kayla nodded. “Yup!  _ Someone  _ didn’t tell me they had a date.”

“You do? With who?” Nico asked, turning to Will with a look of complete confusion that might’ve been funny at a time where he wasn’t getting embarrassed to death by his sister.

“Um, you?” Kayla said. Will facepalmed. 

Kayla and Nico looked at each other, both starting to get more and more baffled until they both came to a silent realization. “We’re not on a date,” Nico said at the same time as Kayla realized, “You’re not on a date.”

“That took almost a whole minute,” Will muttered.

“Okay, well then, do you guys want to.. eat stuff?” Kayla asked, in that refined behind-the-counter way. 

“I don’t see the stuff,” Nico said blankly. “There’s only toppings and stuff. But not  _ the  _ stuff.”

Will was slightly concerned by the fact that both Nico and Kayla were calling the ‘fro-yo’ just  _ stuff _ . “It’s in the little machine thingies.”

Nico looked like he might faint. “ _ What?  _ What kind of abomination is this? It’s supposed to be in the cartons!”

“He’s never had fro-yo before,” Kayla whispered, looking as if she might faint herself. 

“You two are so  _ dramatic _ .”

Kayla waved him off. “Will, you better show this boy the wonders of frozen yogurt, or I’ll do it myself.” 

Will decided to ignore the smirk on her face as he lightly pulled Nico by the hand over to where the actual  _ stuff  _ (jeez, they were rubbing off on him) was. 

“It’s so  _ bright, _ ” Nico said, looking around like a little kid. 

“Fro-yo places have weird interiors.”

“I mean, it’s not  _ bad _ . It’s pretty.”

“You’d know a thing or two about that, huh,” Will murmured under his breath. He didn’t know what made him say it (maybe it was how Nico’s hair was still messy in the back from slumping in his seat or how his lips were slightly parted in awe or how surprisingly warm his hand was or how his eyes looked like pools of honey in the light and  _ oh _ .) Nonetheless, he hadn't meant to say it out loud.

Nico looked between him and the hand he was holding. “I- What?” he squeaked.

“Um. Your house. Yeah, it’s really pretty. Um, yeah.”

“It is?” Will tried not to feel too bad as Nico let go of his hand to grab a cup. “Dad tries to make it as Underworld-y as possible because he thinks it's funny.” He frowned. “Which one’s good?”

“Why? Oh, you should try mango.” 

Nico sighed. “My dad runs a funeral home and..” He trailed off, muttering something so quietly Will couldn’t hear him. He put his cup under the machine, glaring at it disapprovingly.

“What?”

“My dad’s name is Hades,” he said again, rolling his eyes as if it was something he had to talk about more than he’d want to. “God, my family is weird.”

Will tried to not laugh, failing miserably. “That actually makes a lot of sense. Your dad is the god of the Underworld.”

“Hah, hilarious. My stepmom’s name is Persephone, as well, which makes it ten times worse.” He stopped to fill up the cup. “Somehow, dad even managed to find a secretary named  _ Thanatos _ .”

“The death dude?” 

“Yup, who decides to name their kid the god of death?”

Will got a cup himself and filled it up with chocolate because  _ chocolate.  _ “Do you have a zombie chauffeur or an army of skeletons too?”

“I called Jules-Albert that once, it wasn’t pretty.”

“Wait. You have a chauffeur. Like an actual chauffeur, and you still needed me to drive you?”

“Would  _ you _ want to get ice-cream with a chauffeur?” Nico shuddered. “He even has a French accent, Will.  _ A French accent. _ I’d rather be with you.” And no, that did not make Will’s heart rate go crazy high. (Being around Nico di Angelo was seriously bad for his health.)

“ _ Not  _ ice-cream, but fair point,” he said, voice cracking a little bit at the end. “You know, it’s better with toppings.”

“Ooh, yes, toppings! Toppings are great, Nico!” Kayla yelled out. “I’m a professional. Give me your cup.”

“Okay.” Will winced as Nico made the terrible, terrible choice of passing his cup to Kayla, who immediately grabbed the caramel dispenser. 

“You’re going to regret that, I promise.”

Nico didn’t seem fazed as his cup was drowned in enough caramel to kill an army. “Caramel’s good.” Will caught the hint of an accent in his ‘caramel’. Really, it shouldn’t have been allowed to be so perfect. He caught Will’s eye and tilted his head like  _ ‘what am I going to do with you?’ _

Thankfully, Kayla saved the day by interrupting. “Here you go.” Will looked down at the monster she had created. When did she have the time to add so many sprinkles? “Watching the two of you stare into each other’s eyes is fun and all but it’s gonna  _ melt _ .”

“Right. Wait, no,” Nico frowned as he took his frozen yogurt back. Kayla grinned.

Will pinched the bridge of his nose, and took the box of sprinkles from her to put some in his own cup. 

“Cherry?” he asked. She passed one to him.

“Pay up, big bro,” she said. 

Nico lightly punched Will in the arm as he tried to get out his wallet. “No.” Will rubbed his arm. “You’re not paying.” Kayla looked amused as Nico took out a gray credit card from his back pocket and swiped it, before putting a twenty in the tip. (Why did he just have cash in his pocket? Maybe it was a rich kid thing. Or just a Nico thing.)

“O-kay. You didn’t have to punch me. That was  _ rude _ ,” he said dramatically.

“Sorry,” he said, not sounding sorry at all, but Will forgave him on account of  _ wow that is an adorable little smirk  _ and  _ how is it possible for me to fall even more for you than I already have _ ?

Kayla hummed knowingly, tapping her fingers on the counter. “So, boys, lovely weather outside, luckily, we have seats out there. Also because this is so sickeningly sweet, I might get cavities.”

Will decidedly to pointedly ignore the last bit, and gestured for Nico to follow him outside. Before closing the door, he shot Kayla a glare.  _ Be quiet _ , he mouthed. She suddenly seemed too occupied to look at him, looking down at the cash register with concentration, a grin on her lips.

“Your sister’s fun. Weird, but fun,” Nico said once Will closed the door. 

“In a way. Unfortunately, she happens to be very nosy.” Most people he knew happened to be, really. Lou, Piper, Cecil, Kayla, his life was like one terrible soap opera.

“Sisters have a way of doing that,” Nico agreed solemnly as they sat down. He put a spoonful in his mouth, much to Will’s horror.

“How can you eat that?” he asked, his voice dropping down an octave because  _ that is not healthy and you’re going to die, di Angelo, and that is something you’re not doing on my watch.  _

Nico seemed pleased with Will’s displeasure. “You’ve seen what Hazel eats.”

Will shook his head in disbelief. “How can you two be the child of a man named Hades and still try to kill yourselves with  _ sugar _ .”

“Oh Will, you haven’t even met my dad yet,” Nico said. “He’s worse than both of us combined. Persephone and Bianca are the only semi-normal ones in the family.”

“That’s a pretty low bar. But appreciated nonetheless.” 

Nico pointed his spoon at him. “Hey, I thought your sister would be a health freak too, but look where we are.”

Will grinned, silently thanking John Green for indirectly making Nico call him in the middle of the day to eat fro-yo. 

After all, an hour alone with him, talking and just awkwardly staring, was a win in Will’s books, anyday (Kayla had given them free refills).

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok so what im aiming for is weekly updates bc once school starts I'll be using my school laptop 4 days out of seven, and I'll probably only be able to get on friday-sunday, so yeah.  
> also, i suck at responding to them but i love your comments ;)


	8. hi guys where was i who knows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> honestly can i even consider this a chapter?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so apparently i underestimated the sheer insanity of my teachers, and i just- hfjbkdfnvdvjdf  
> this is why you dont take a million ap classes screw me  
> anyways this isn't even long enough to be considered a chapter but i dont even know how to function anymore :)

Drew was more than a little annoyed.

Sure, it was endearing and whatever to watch Will and Nico stumble over each other and adorable when they’d go from snarky to hiding smiles and the _staring_ was almost too much to handle. She felt like she was in Twilight or something.

She turned to Nico with a glare as Will got up to go to the bathroom. “I’m going to stab everyone in this room with a pen if I have to see you two being this painfully obvious one more time.”

Nico bit his lip. Over the past week or so, Drew had unspokenly taken him under her wing, but even she had a limit to how much complete awkwardness she could take. He was lucky he was cute. Typically, most people would give up after his almost-causing-a-small-crater-on-the-earth-while-burning-almost-everything-she'd-bought-for-him, but Drew was persistent. “Am I really that bad? Should I just stop talking or-”

“Sweetie, I really don’t think we’re going to get any work done without talking. Really, it'd be better if you just talked things through,” she interrupted drily. "If you're still going by that nonsense that whatever happened yesterday was strictly platonic, I'm going to cry."

"I'm fairly sure that taking someone to a place you went with your ex-girlfriend is a whole different level of friend-zone. Piper agreed with me."

Drew rolled her eyes. "Yes, but that's _Piper_." Nico made a confused expression. 

"Do you guys have something going on?"

"Ask her," Drew replied, sounding more bitter than she had meant to. "It's just not my secret to tell, I guess." Nico nodded understandingly. He went back to outlining the major parts of their project. Since she currently had nothing to do until they actually remembered to bring their supplies, she decided to watch him in a completely non-creepy way.

Ever since the weird friendship between them had started, Drew understood the natural mother-henning instinct that came to everyone when they were around Nico di Angelo. Every time someone said something against him or came up with some stupid rumor or another, she felt herself getting oddly overprotective. And that's a _lot_ of the time, actually. Why people feel the need to talk crap about him just because he came out to Percy Jackson at the end of last year, she didn't know. But she did know she wasn't going to stand for it.

He was part of her family now, whether he knew it or not. And she loved every single person in that family, even if she happened to be bad at showing it.

And that included Piper McLean, as well.

Before she could delve into that particular rabbit hole, Will Solace came back, smiling and sunshiny as always. 

"You're actually doing work," he noted. "Anyways, we're basically doing nothing since we didn't buy anything, so there's that."

"Actually, you two aren't doing any work," Nico put in. "I'm being very helpful, as you can clearly see."

"Isn't that adorable," Will retorted, grinning. Drew wanted to rip her hair out. "Anyways, Drew, I just remembered to invite you to our annual high school party."

"In what way is it annual?" she asked, taking pride in the way Nico's face paled as if this was an event he had hoped to forget. 

"Uh, fair point," Will said, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly. "But we have flyers!" He shoved a brightly colored piece of paper in her direction.

Nico gave him a look of pure fear. "You used colored paper." Will finger-gunned at him, which was probably the most bisexual move in the books (she would know), which led her to wonder in what way, shape, or form Nico had ever thought he could be straight.

"I'm flattered, but did you really pretend to go to the bathroom to print out a flyer?"

Will smiled sheepishly. "Um, maybe?" He brightened. "But will you go?"

Drew read the name on the flyer with a small frown. "I don't think I'd exactly be welcome if I did." Will looked so sad she couldn't possibly say no. "But, um, sure."

Will looked at her with the most adorably thankful expression that she wondered how in the world this emotional manipulation could be legal, and somehow managed to accidentally hug Nico, who squawked and turned red. How do you _accidentally hug someone?_

"Sorry, sorry," Will said, apparently completely oblivious to Nico's embarrassed sputtering. "Piper's going to be so excited that we'll actually have people!"

Drew doubted Piper would be excited to see her, but she shrugged anyways. "Well then, good for her."

She almost smiled before Will managed to hit them both with a notebook. Nico made a noise of annoyance before throwing a pen at him, that somehow bounced off and hit her in the nose.

They stared at her with wide eyes.

Why did _she_ have to be the one to put up with these idiots?

-

The first thing Nico had done when he'd gotten home was text Jason that _I survived and nobody even had to find out that when I called Will, it was because Hazel was threatening to finish off my gummy bears!_ because typically, that was what friends were supposed to do.

So when Jason _that stupid idiot_ Grace ignored him for the rest of the day the next day as well, Nico was wondering what he'd done wrong. 

It was only until he was sitting on the curb of the school when he realized that he had an actual problem on his hands. No Jason, no driver, and the _one_ time he might actually have needed Jules-Albert, he was taking Hazel to a movie.

About two seconds later, he decided that it would've been better for him to have stayed on that curb for the rest of his life (okay, maybe not) then what actually happened.

"No."

How or why Percy Jackson was standing in front of him, grinning like the dork he was, and getting stares from everyone outside, Nico had no idea. But _no_ he definitely did not need Percy to be here.

"No? Come on, dude! I'm supposed to be, like, your knight in shining armor," Percy said, putting his hands on his hips. 

"You can't take me alive."

"I will physically drag you into my car."

Nico huffed. "Fairly sure that's considered kidnapping."

Percy tilted his head. "It is? That explains a lot."

The scary thing? Nico didn't know if he was joking or not.

"Perce. I'm concerned." He kicked at a rock in the street.

Percy sighed before dramatically pulling him up by the arms. "Tell Jason and Pipes Me and Annabeth are taking custody."

Nico groaned. If he had to go through another 'custody battle' between Jason and Percy arguing over who he liked better, he didn't think he would make it. "I hope you know everyone here already thinks you and I are star-crossed lovers, and this isn't helping."

"What about Annabeth? And the fact that we live on opposite ends of the country?" Percy asked with a snort, winking at someone that would probably torment Nico later.

"Hence, _star-crossed_."

"That's funny. But you're still not getting away that easy. Jason's been talking, y'know. I'm always here for a shovel talk," he said. Nico froze up. 

"Oh my god."

"The whole Protection Squad knows, really."

Nico covered his ears with his hands. "Please don't call yourselves that and I'll go with you."

Percy laughed and ruffled Nico's hair. "You think you could stop me either way? That's adorable, Neeks."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i missed percy, so here we are


	9. lou and cecil do stuff

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i dont even know

"Blue, right? So if you look at the sky, do you just think of him? Like _ooh pretty sky pretty eyes, mwah._ Or is it like ocean blue? I hope not. Sea green is my thing." Nico pressed his lips together as he glared at Percy, who was being more annoying than he had ever thought possible. However, Percy was in the driver's seat, so Nico couldn't exactly _do_ anything to stop him, unless he wanted to end up as roadkill. 

"Please stop."

"Hold on." Percy suddenly laughed, which was not a good sign. "Isn't that dude the same guy you were complaining about like two months ago. 'Oh my god, it was just a _scratch_.' 'So what if I've eaten nothing but Twinkies this whole month?' 'He has _no right_ to tell me to take better care of myself. I'm great at taking care of myself!' Right?"

Nico paled. "What? No. Um. No. I've never said that."

"Yes, yes you did."

"No."

"Uh-huh."

"Why do you guys keep tabs on every single guy I mention?" It was like having a whole group of overprotective siblings. Honestly, _he_ wasn't like that with Hazel, right?

Ah.

Percy puffed out his chest, putting his hands on his hips (and almost giving Nico a heart attack before he realized they were at a red light.) "Because that's my job."

"You're fired."

"You can't fire me. I'm self-employed."

Nico decided that if he was going to keep up this conversation, he'd probably lose about half his brain cells, so he crossed his arms and leaned back on the seat of Percy's Prius and squinted outside the window, frowning. "This isn't where my house is. This is an _actual_ kidnapping."

Percy rolled his eyes. "Dude. You seriously mean to tell me you don't know where we are?"

"Do you?" he asked because if Percy didn't know where they were going, then this was going to be bad.

"What- _duh_. I'm not an idiot. We're off to see the love of my life." Percy wiped away an imaginary tear. 

"Annabeth doesn't live here."

Percy sighed dramatically. "Unfortunately. But how do you not know where we're going?"

Nico looked outside. Sure the road seemed familiar. But he never drove anywhere. Usually it was Jules-Albert or Jason driving him.

 _Oh._ "Why are we going to Jason's house?" he asked, his voice taking a bitter edge. He hadn't done anything wrong (as far as he could remember), and Jason was still angry enough at him to ignore him for a whole day.

"Because he was the one who told me to come pick you up."

"You came all the way from California to come pick me up?"

Percy rolled his eyes _again_. "No, Neeks. Me and Annabeth came yesterday. I thought I texted you about that? Or not. Who knows." 

"I don't remember that," Nico said with a frown. Both of them having ADHD made comparing notes on things hard. If Percy had texted him and forgotten or if Nico had thought he'd opened a text message or if he hadn't, it'd be hard to remember.

ADHD sucked.

"Okay, well, anyways I'm staying at Jason's for a few weeks while Annabeth's staying with Pipes. Neither of them let us stay together because of something about 'not being able to keep it in our pants'. Whatever." Nico gagged at that. "And then this morning he told me to come pick you up today and so I said sure." 

Nico rubbed his temples. "Percy. Picking me up means dropping me off at _my own house_."

"No, no, no. He wanted to say sorry."

"Why was he planning to apologize _before_ he started ignoring me?" 

"Not about ignoring you. About the other thing." Nico waited for Percy to elaborate. He didn't. 

"Which is..?"

"Oh man, you'll see." Percy laughed again, which Nico was now beginning to think actually may be a bad omen. He shot him one more wary look before slumping back in the seat.

After what felt like hours (Nico could've swore Percy had deliberately taken the long way), they finally reached Jason's house. 

Percy stretched his arms. "Dude, I keep forgetting the fact that all of you are so freaking _rich_."

Nico ignored him as he unbuckled his seatbelt. He wished he could forget that too. Staying in that huge house with only Hazel whenever his dad was gone - which was a lot - got lonely sometimes. "Mhm."

Percy pulled him along to the front porch and rang the doorbell, bouncing on the balls of his feet. 

The door eventually opened, the face of a sheepish looking Jason Grace peeking out. He'd taken his glasses off, and looked nervous for some reason. 

"Hey.. Hey Neeks. Wow, that new sweater, it looks great. It, uh, brings out your... hair? Because it's... black. Uh, did I ever tell you how amazing you are?"

"I think you were a little busy _not talking to me_." 

Percy patted Jason's arm. "Maybe show him first. I don't think the praise will work. That's like, a mom thing."

Jason nodded. "Okay, um, well then, come on in." Nico crossed his arms and stepped inside. Jason turned somewhere behind him. "Uh, so you can come out now. I don't think he'll murder you."

Nico looked at Percy in confusion. An all-too-familiar boy was suddenly in the room with an all-too-familiar smirk. "Wait, what?"

"Aw, di Angelo, did you miss me?" the boy said, running a hand through his hair in a somehow-annoying way (how was that annoying? Nico wasn't sure. But he managed to make most things annoying, so he wasn't surprised.)

He blinked repeatedly. "But- You're not.. dead?"

Leo Valdez put his arms up. "Well, obviously _not._ "

-

" _Lou!_ " Cecil hissed. 

Lou Ellen fumbled with her phone, which was ringing like crazy. "What do I do? I can't just decline!"

"Well, put it on silent!"

She did that, looking at the screen wistfully as the caller ID faded. "Dang it."

Cecil tried to sneak a look, which was hard considering they were on opposite ends of a tiny bathroom stall. "Who is it? If both of my best friends get boyfriends, that'll superbly _suck_."

"We're hiding in the girl's bathroom of our school which is closed, need I remind you, so I don't know how it isn't already superbly sucking." She huffed. "And for the record, she's a girl."

"Yes, but we're in the bathroom _so_ we can get dear old Will a small Italian boyfriend, so I think it's rather selfless of me. But, we're supposed to third wheel _together_."

"Ellis Wakefield is still single, last time I checked."

"Ew," Cecil said, making a face. "Anyways, Brunner's the only teacher crazy enough to stay this late but even he should have left his office by now, so we can get out of this stall. Fun!"

"Fun," Lou repeated, dusting off her jeans as she stood up. "You have the confetti, right?"

"And you have the glitter?"

"Yup. And the security cameras may or may not have just froze so the hallways may or may not seem to be empty for the next hour." Cecil gave her a high five. Lou had a knack for getting people to see what they wanted to see.

"Will's lucky to have us," he announced. Lou Ellen nodded in agreement. "I mean really, who could resist falling in love with someone after a prank?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah so the word count per chapter is definitely NOT consistent because i am a mess  
> also i cannot believe i just introduced leo like that pFt  
> im not funny


	10. sparkly times

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oop this actually had more but i wanted to get SOMETHING out for my attempt at weekly updates, so on the bright side, the next chapter is partially written!

Okay. This was bad.

"This is bad," Piper said, repeating Will's exact thoughts. "How.. how did this happen?"

"I don't know," Will said, staring down at his sparkly pink hands. A memory of Lou Ellen and Cecil texting him _oh dude, you're so welcome_ without any context popped up in the back of his mind. "Oh no."

Piper pulled a roll of paper towels out of her backpack. "Clean it up before someone catches you." He took the sheets as fast as she ripped them off, frantically scrubbing away pink glitter from his clothes. 

"Why is glitter so hard to get off?" he complained. Piper's eyes suddenly went wide and she hurriedly put herself in front of him (which really wouldn't do much good considering he happens to be just over six feet. Stupid genes.)

Nico managed to bump into five people, a recycling bin, and a water fountain until he finally threw himself into Piper's arms with a wail. He managed to somehow not notice Will, which was slightly concerning. 

He started rapidly ranting so quickly Will couldn't make out a word he was saying. Piper looked as confused as Will did but nodded understandingly anyways. He finished off with vague hand motions. 

Piper hugged him and muttered, _"it's okay"_. Nico sniffled and then made his way to grab something from his locker.

Nico didn't seem to care about the bright pink confetti, grabbing his history book with the same faraway expression that he had when he'd walked straight into a wall about a minute earlier.

Will winced as Nico was attacked by glitter. Honestly, he'd thought what he'd gotten was all of it, but apparently Lou Ellen and Cecil were _prepared_. Nico sputtered out sparkly dust from his mouth, wiping his eyes and then staring at his locker for a good minute before closing it without a word.

He turned to them, apparently having noticed Will with a matching coat of glitter. He blinked. "Solace?"

"Wow. Hey. Weird coincidence. Am I right?" he said casually.

"Uh-huh. Yeah." Nico looked at him with a tilt of his head, mumbling something about _sky blue or ocean blue?_ He was pretty sure Nico was losing it. Apparently Nico had similar thoughts because he shook his head, glitter falling out of his curls and making Will even more sure about the accuracy of his last name. 

Piper snickered as he sighed dreamily. He pointedly ignored her. "Um, you okay?"

Nico laughed drily. "Okay? Obviously I'm okay. Why wouldn't I be okay? I'm _fine._ Everything's fine." He inhaled deeply, suddenly bursting into a coughing fit, probably from the all glitter in his mouth. 

"Hey sweetie, maybe don't choke to death for now, okay?" Piper said. "Come on, I'll walk you to your class and we'll talk about what's wrong, sound good?" 

Nico nodded. Will breathed a sigh of relief as he walked away and started rambling to Piper (in English, this time).

-

He shouldn't have been surprised when Piper already knew. _Oh yeah, I already knew Leo was alive. Found out about a month after he 'disappeared', actually._ His already-fritzed brain took in this information, that basically everyone and their mother (or celebrity dad in Piper's case) had known that Leo was fine.

His reaction _might_ have been a little dramatic (Read as: throwing-enchiladas-and-cursing-him-out-to-the-point-Jason-had-to-threaten-to-wash-his-mouth-out-with-soap dramatic), but considering the fact that no one ( _him_. Apparently Piper and Jason had been in touch with him for half a year. Not that Nico blamed them of course, it was just surprising.) had heard from him ever since that stupid New York tour group to Greece.

It wasn't like he and Nico were close, really, and the trip had sucked even without someone disappearing off the face of the cruise ship. 

Well, maybe assuming he was dead was a bit of an overreaction. Just a little.

But the sour cream he threw after Leo'd explained how he'd actually just snuck off with some girl and then gotten sidetracked was totally justified, despite what Percy said.

"Why are you..?" Jason gestured to all of him as he slumped into his desk.

"I don't know," he said plainly. 

"Okay," Jason said, deciding not to press. "Want a sweatshirt?" He took out a hoodie from his backpack. Nico peeked inside.

"Why do you have like seven different sweatshirts, Jace?" He held out the one Jason had handed him. "This.. is Percy's. Why do you have Percy's clothes?"

"One question at a time," he said, waving his hand dismissively.

"I give up," Nico shook his head and slipped it on. 

"So, mystery time?"

"What?"

Jason rapped his knuckles on the side of Nico's head. "We have a mystery to solve, duh. You're all sparkly and you don't want to know why?"

Nico shrugged. "I mean, the only person I'd think of who'd be in my locker for any reason would be mystery letter dude." He frowned. "Then again, that doesn't really explain why Will was- hold up."

Jason raised an eyebrow. "That was anti-climactic, but could you possibly use words instead of doing that fish-gaping thing?"

"Do you think that maybe Will..." He trailed off, waiting for Jason to make the connection.

"No, Nico. I don't know because I have no clue what you're talking about."

"Fine, so.. Do you think maybe he has someone writing to him too?" It wasn't that much of a stretch, was it? Everyone with eyes could see that Will Solace looked like a modern Adonis and was probably one of the sweetest people he'd ever met, so obviously he couldn't be the only one completely crushing on him.

"How would I know? Just ask him maybe? Because verbal communication is really important," Jason said.

"You're one to talk."

"Touche."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lol he was so close  
> also i had a change in format in case you didn't notice bc no one has time to go back and reread stuff


	11. nico gives relationship advice while still being oblivious

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i just realized this fic is 16k i didn't even know i could write more than 10k  
> anyways wifi decided to be a bitch so late update :c  
> strangely proud of this chapter title

"Well, you're not Cecil," Will said, pretending like he wasn't scared out of his wits. Nico shrugged. He looked adorable, practically drowning in a hoodie, the words NRU SWIM TEAM on the front. Percy's, he assumed because last time he checked, Nico wasn't in New Rome University or able to swim even if his life depended on it. 

_No, Will. Stop ogling him._

"He wanted to switch seats. Apparently, being in the back helps him focus more," he said. Nico looked at Will, and then around the room with a frown. 

Will raised an eyebrow before getting out his binder. "Are you any good with any of this stuff?"

Nico scoffed. "My dad found Greek history and mythology a great replacement for bedtime stories. He's more than a little extra." He could hear the fondness in his voice. _Cute. Wait. Not the time._

"Oh." He cleared his throat. "I kind of suck at this class in general. I had zero idea about yesterday's homework."

Nico leaned forward in his seat, making Will's lungs forget how to function, and then taking out his questions from the other day from his binder. "These are... almost all wrong. You can remember the names of all those ligaments and bones and stuff but not the difference between Calypso and Callisto?"

"Okay, but that stuff's _easy_. The Greeks all had similar names!"

"First of all, if you don't know whether or not Zeus has slept with someone, the answer's more than likely _yes_ , and Persephone's the goddess of _spring_ , not flowers. Honest mistake, though."

"Huh."

"And Artemis was the goddess of the moon as well. Her followers are Hunters, not Amazons." Nico looked back up at him. "Maybe you need to go sit in the back and pay attention."

"Oh, shut up," Will said, snorting.

Nico tucked a strand of hair behind his ears. "Hey, so, uh... Actually, there was something I wanted to ask you." 

He was _not_ ready for this. Yeah, that had been Cecil and Lou's plan and all, to make him not have to confess but still have Nico know that Will liked him, all in a way that Will could deny it if it made things awkward.

_"Or maybe if he liked you back, he'd be able to tell you because he'd know how you feel,"_ Lou had said.

As if. He was lucky enough that Nico wasn't ignoring him completely.

He tried leaning his elbow on the desk in nonchalance, missing terribly and almost falling out of his seat. "Go ahead."

Nico inhaled. "Is someone writing to you because that is literally the only explanation I can think of and if the answer is yes its not me because that's not the reason I was asking," he said in a single breath.

Will stared at him for a second. This was not anticipated. On the bright side, Lou Ellen and Cecil's plan hadn't worked, but at the same time, he had no idea what was happening.

"What?"

"Nevermind." Nico frowned. "Then why _do_ you have glitter on you?"

Finally, something he could answer. He'd been thinking of an excuse since morning because Will Solace was _prepared_. "Cecil and Lou spilled it on me on their way to vandalize your locker."

"They _what_?" 

"I had nothing to do with it," Will said quickly.

Nico glanced back at Cecil, who grinned and made a kissy face. Will made a 'cut it' motion with his hands. Nico was looking back at him, looking somewhat flustered. 

"Don't look too into what he does," Will said. "I love him and all, but that boy has questionable role models."

"Oh. That... actually makes a lot of sense."

Will cracked a grin. "So, which one's Tantalus again?"

Nico poked his ankle with his own toe. "Do it on your own, idiot." He pointed it out anyway.

-

"You seem stressed out," Nico said, raising an eyebrow at his sister. She was pacing back and forth in the living room, hair tied up into a bun, which meant she was thinking hard.

"I just.. I don't know. I mean, I kind of expected this but at the same time I don't know what to do," Hazel said.

Nico patted the space next to him on the couch. "Sit." She sat down. "Okay, talk."

"You're really not the best person to talk to about this."

"Try me."

"Nico, you wouldn't know what to do with a confession even if you tried."

After the initial offence wore out, he realized what she said. "Wait. A confession? Who??"

"Frank," she said, her voice softening as she said so, almost dreamily. Nico remembered she had been talking about a Frank sometime before. A week ago? He could've swore he knew who it was. 

"Frank who?" 

"If you try to stare him down, I will personally come after you," Hazel said, getting defensive.

"I won't!" After realizing how annoying it had been when Percy had hounded him, he decided he was going to make sure his sister did not have to go through that.

Hazel debated that in her head before answering, "Zhang."

Nico may have clapped at that. "I know him! I approve! 100 percent, all the way! You have my blessing."

"Hold on, really?"

"Yeah, he was actually pretty good at Mythomagic. Almost an equal. Almost. Anyways, he's innocent enough for me to trust him to not hurt you. Why didn't you tell me who he was before?"

Hazel shoved his shoulder. "Geek. Anyways, you potentially scaring him off wasn't the problem. I just don't know how to respond."

Nico clasped her hands together. "How do you feel about him?"

"I mean, he's kind and caring and always knows how to make me laugh. And I think I do like him. A lot." She bit her lip. 

"Aww," he cooed. She blushed and stuck her tongue out. "If you like him back, then what's the problem?"

"It's just... everyone expects it. For me to say yes."

"You should never let anyone else stop you from doing that, Hazel. You go get your man. What if they do expect it? Just means that you guys would be good together. I think."

She smiled, kissing his cheek. "Thanks. I can't believe I'm going to take advice from you, but I'll try."

"Why? I'm very wise, I'll have you know."

"Neeks, you haven't ever even had a boyfriend. Your relationship advice doesn't have anything backing it up."

Nico scoffed. "Quality, not quantity."

"That in no way applies to what I just said."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> frazel <333  
> sorry  
> anyways i feed off comments so those would be fun please c:


	12. say it with me: filler!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok so basically i did a dumb and timeskipped while i was writing because i thought i could pull it off.  
> spoiler alert: i couldn't so i had to write this before publishing the next one  
> so yeah i have the next chapter mostly finished and idk if I'll publish it early or wait a week, honestly just depends on how far i can get with the chapter after the next

"You're joking, right?" Lou Ellen What's-her-last-name-again had randomly approached Nico that Tuesday morning.

"Um, we don't really talk so I don't know what you mean," he said, looking around desperately for someone to save him. _I'm definitely about to be kidnapped, aren't I?_

Lou sighed. "You really are oblivious, aren't you? You're adorable and all, sweetie, but you really can't tell when someone likes you."

Nico blinked. "Oh, um. You're cool and all, but.. uh, not my type? I mean, nothing against you or anything. I just don't like girls. Like _like-like_. Not trying to be, um, sexist or anything. Sorry, I'll go now."

"I'm literally a _lesbian_."

"Oh," he said blankly. He's pretty sure he's not a female. Wait, no. He isn't. What? _Hey brain, please start working._

Lou looked like she was wanting to pull her hair out (she had nice hair, he noted. Lush and black with purple streaks in the front. He wanted to ask what conditioner she was using, but decided it wasn't the time.) 

"Okay. Bye, Nico," she said, after taking multiple deep breaths. He swore he heard her mutter a 'I wanted to be the flower girl' as she turned on her heel and walked away.

Well, _that_ was certainly confusing.

-

"You finally brought the poster board. I'm so proud of you," Drew said in a bored voice as Nico rambled some excuse involving a poodle named Cerberus and his sister. That boy was definitely something.

"Our project is due in two days," Will complained.

"That's more than enough," Nico said. 

"It's Wednesday. The thing is due Friday. And not to mention the fact that we had more than a week and a half to do it already," Drew added.

"See?" Will said miserably. "Bye bye medical degree."

Nico rolled his eyes. "Well, since Will was the one doing all of the rubric stuff, then it's his fault, not mine."

"Woah, woah, woah." Will waved around the three pages of notes he had written (man, that boy was an overachiever.) "I did you both a favor by not making you have to do the dumb plot thing or the character analysis."

" _You're_ a dumb plot thingy."

Drew cut in before they started bringing out the setting and theme insults (Again: definitely something.) or ended up in some stupid half-flirting half-arguing situation with thick enough sexual tension to speed up the global warming process. "Tick tock. Time's a-wasting, children."

"Who has the washi tape??"

-

Will gaped at the 90 written on the rubric.

"If you say something about how a B isn't good enough, I will rip that piece of paper in half," Drew said. He didn't know if she was kidding. He hugged it closer.

"No! It's good. We didn't fail. A B is _fine,_ English is a dumb subject anyway."

Nico had covered the bottom half of his face with his hand. It took Will a second to realize he was trying not to laugh. "Sorry, it's just, that wasn't how you sounded yesterday with that lecture on the importance of perspective."

"I hated that as much as you two did, except I actually wanted to keep my grades up."

"Bold of you to assume we have high enough grades to keep up in the first place," Drew retorted.


	13. black nail polish + fruit punch

Nico was never listening to Piper ever again.

_Ooh, but it's our senior year, we can't just miss out on the iconic high school experience, Nico. I doubt that many people would even come, Nico. It'll be fun!_

Seriously, it was like he couldn't properly argue with her even if he tried.

"Why am I here?" he grumbled, pulling his jacket around himself more tightly. 

Drew patted his shoulder. Why she had offered to come with him, he didn't know, considering she probably knew just about everyone. "Because Will and Piper are hard to say no to."

That was fair. 

As if on cue, a girl nearly barreled in front of him, a grin on her face and a blue feather in her hair. "You didn't ditch!"

"That was an option?"

Piper laughed. "No." Her gaze flickered to Drew, her grin slipping. "Oh. Hi."

"Hi," Drew said, strangely quiet.

Now this was weird. 

"Nice hoops," Piper said awkwardly, gesturing to her earrings.

"Oh yeah. I'm planning on lecturing the crap out of anyone who says that 'the bigger the hoop, the bigger the hoe' on slut-shaming." she said. 

The corners of Piper's lips twitched upward. "Preach it, sister." She scratched the back of her neck nervously. "Um, I didn't mean it like that. Sister. Um. Just... Actually, I'm gonna go get my own hoops from my room. Wanna come with?"

"Sure," Drew said, after a moment's hesitation. They both looked at Nico expectantly.

"No. You guys go ahead. I'll.. stay here." He waved his hand randomly around the room. They seemed to be getting along together well, though he had no clue why they were being so weird.

"Really? Okay. I think Will's with Lou right now. If I know him, and I do, he'll be right here as soon as he realizes you're here."

She shared a look with Drew. They both rolled their eyes. "They need to hook up already." 

"I _know,_ right?"

On second thought, maybe having them together had been a bad idea.

"Go upheave the standards of society or whatever and leave me alone," he said. Piper nodded and started up the stairs, Drew following behind her as they talked about who-knows-what.

He leaned on the wall (wow, this was already starting to seem like a big cliché) and took out his phone.

_< me> jason youre supposed to be here_

_< mom> im coming just WAIT_

_< me> why are you so slow _

_< mom> because im trying to pick out clothes_

_< mom> which is somewhat hard because my closet isnt made up entirely of black and black and more black_

_< me> no one asked for that pettiness grace_

_< mom> it came with the package, no refunds_

"Sorry—Ow!—Fuck!—Nico!"

He looked up, Will looking down (why did he have to be so tall?) at him. Nico saw people glaring at their direction and rubbing their arms. "Did you really just shove past all of them?"

"I didn't actually think there'd be so many people. I can't remember why I agreed to help Piper with this in the first place. It's weird, it's like she can make you do whatever she tells you to, right? Did you paint your nails?" he said. 

"Yes..?" he said, scratching at his nail polish with a small frown. "Is it too much?" 

"No! It's cute. You're- I mean- it looks okay, I guess." Will fidgeted his fingers. "You pull it off," he decided. Nico smiled.

"Thanks."

"So, um, I'll just.. go, then. Just saying hi, y'know. Hi." Will facepalmed. "That was dumb."

"Hi," Nico said, amused.

"Yeah, okay, bye!"

"Oh." He'd expected him to stay longer, but Will probably had better things to do, no doubt. "Bye." 

Will gave him a sheepish smile before disappearing with more shouts of disproval from people as he made his way past them.

"Heyyyy," someone said, almost immediately taking Will's place as he left.

"Stoll," he said, less for dramatic effect and more because he didn't know which one he was talking to. From how Mitchell appeared not more than a second later, slightly out of breath, he assumed he was looking at Connor.

"Really quick question: do you like apple juice?"

Nico stared at him. "Do I what?"

"Oh my god, Connor, you can't just ask people if they like apple juice! What he _means_ is if you want to play truth or dare."

-

Will was _this_ close to drowning in fruit punch (yes, Piper had insisted on the classic). On the bright side, it wasn't spiked, which felt like a personal triumph, but on the other hand, he didn't know what to do.

He didn't _do_ parties, which led him to wonder for the hundredth time that day why he had ever decided to help Piper with one. The last time he'd been to one was freshmen year, _ew_.

AKA, it was boring.

Cecil was probably having fun doing something that wasn't staying in the McLean mansion with way too many sweaty and hormonal teenagers, he thought. Cecil had been the only person who'd apparently been able to resist his charm (which he wasn't aware of having until now) and not come.

Lou might've as well, but as he stared at her shamelessly flirting with his sister, he doubted he was the reason she'd came.

She stuck her tongue out at him as she caught his eyes, Kayla also shooting him a look through her fringe. As if he was going to rain their parade. The whole 'my friends can't date my siblings' was weird in his opinion. He knew and trusted both of them enough to know neither of them would break each other's hearts.

He rolled his eyes, refilling his cup again (not a red Solo cup, thank every divinity). Some guy he thought he might know had set the sink on fire and Percy was drawing up a crowd of wide-eyed sophomores as he talked about something to do with a late essay and an angry teacher, Annabeth shaking her head and pointing out his exaggerations with a loving kiss on the cheek. How people managed to find things to do at these things was a mystery.

"What are you doing here?" Piper said, snapping him out of his observations. He hadn't even noticed that she had approached him.

"I'm drowning. Slowly but surely." 

"Poetic. I thought Nico was with you!"

"Uh, no?"

Jason Grace (where had he come from?) put an hand on Piper's shoulder. "He's doing something over next to the kitchen with Stolls and company."

"I can't believe you just said Stolls and company," she said, already pulling him away. "Go with your boyfriend, Will!" she said before she went out of earshot.

"I really need better friends."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i just found out the first fic on this website under the pjo tag was about nico killing percy and annabeth so he could marry bianca so there's that
> 
> also my schools about to change into traditional so i really have no idea whats going to happen with updates


	14. tipsy tipsy oopsies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the tower of nero was so good???? still sad that toa is over but ill live  
> what the living hell is this title

"Please tell me you're kidding." Will sloshed the half-empty cup around. "Why in any sense would you think drinking something Connor gives you was a good idea?"

"I don't know! He said it was juice." Nico clutched Will's arm. "My head hurts."

Will looked at the ceiling with a sigh. "Come on, let's get you to Piper's room, 'kay?"

"Kay," he mumbled. Will had to admit that in different circumstances, he was absolutely adorable. Will put an arm around his waist, and helped him up the stairs.

Will opened the door to Piper's room, immediately closing it at first glance. "Oh my god. You can't be serious right now."

Nico looked up at him in confusion. "What?"

"Nothing!" Will said quickly, still wanting to bleach his eyes out. No one deserved the pain of seeing what his poor eyes had just witnessed just then. "So yeah, Piper is, uh, not an option, and I really don't think it's a good idea for you to go back down there." 

"So we can go to your house, then?"

"What. Uh." He pondered the option for a moment before shrugging. "You know what, why not?" What could go wrong?

-

Things could go wrong.

"Oh, sweetie, who's this?" Naomi was practically cooing over Nico the second he stepped inside (which to be fair, was an acceptable response to seeing Nico.) 

"This is Nico. A _friend_ , mom," he added as he saw how high her eyebrows went at the name 'Nico', no doubt from eavesdropping on his and Piper's conversations. "And we're going to my room now, bye."

"William Andrew Solace, if you think I'm going to leave you and your boyfriend hungry, then you are wrong, young man."

" _Mom!_ He's not my boyfriend."

Naomi gave him The Look. "Oh, sorry, I mean your friend who you just so happen to be taking up to your room late at night."

Nico stifled a laugh behind his hands. Will felt betrayed. "Shut up," he grumbled. "He's, um, a little tipsy."

"Oh, so _that_ 's what's going on. Don't worry, dear, you've come to the right place. Oh, Ciara and I ended up wasted about every other week. My mama never figured it out, the old prude."

"Mom, can we not bring the family drama to Nico?"

Naomi shushed him. "Go get the boy some water." She turned back to Nico, who was now sitting beside her in the dining table. "She never figured out a thing. I could kiss that girl, and his grandma'd still think we were just gal pals."

"I'd almost prefer Grandma Marcy to you right now," he muttered, setting down a glass of water in front of Nico.

"My granny's like that too. I tried coming out to her, but she just told me to go eat some cereal. Not sure what that means though," Nico said. Will found his (indirect, whatever) siding with his mother a direct insult.

"Probably 'cuz how skinny you are. Who feeds you, darlin'?" She tutted, getting up and getting something out of the freezer.

"You really don't have to, ma'am-"

Naomi shook her head. "Heatin' up some leftovers never hurt no one, did it?" 

"Thank you." Nico smiled at her and took a sip of water. "Your mom's nice," he said to Will. 

"A little bit too much at times," Will said. "You feeling any better?"

Nico made a face. "No."

Will narrowed his eyes. "You're literally swaying, Nico, what the hell did you drink?"

"Maybe you're," he hiccupped, "sweeping me off my feet." He seemed to realize he was sitting. "Okay so, um, it may have been more than a cup." He poked at a hole in his jeans. "Or two." Will gaped at him. "I didn't want to lick Malcolm's elbow, okay?"

"Why didn't you stick with Jason or Pipes? Wait, nevermind that. I know why." He shuddered again. "But _still._ "

"I already told you I didn't know what it was."

"There is a very distinct difference from juice."

Nico _hmph_ ed. "Well, I don't know. Juice tastes bad. The stuff in the cup tasted bad."

"There is _a very distinct difference_ from juice," Will said again, slower.

"You already said that," Nico noted, tilting his head and jutting his lower lip out in such a cute way Will can't bring himself to throttle him, like he might've if _literally anyone else_ said that. He opted for banging his head on the table instead, getting a few choice words from his mother.

-

"So," Will spread out his arms. "What are we doing?"

"You have a TV? In your room?" Nico looked around with big eyes. "And a _sofa_?" Will wasn't sure why it was such a big deal. From the rest of his house, he had assumed Nico's room would probably be as big as Will's entire house.

"Yeah, uh, sleeping isn't much of a priority." He gestured to the unmade bed in the corner of the room. "So, um, do you wanna watch something?"

Nico took a deep breath. "Lilo and Stitch is _the_ best movie out there, please please please please please can we watch it?"

Will wonders, for the millionth time, how someone can be so perfect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> naomi <33  
> also im rethinking my jiper subplot we'll see how it goes


	15. its ok, he's alive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> an update? no way

Nico snuggled into his pillow. Since when was his bed this warm? His head felt like it had been hit with a mallet repeatedly. _Probably need some water or something. Or crackers. Was it crackers?_

He made to get up, only to find that he couldn't, landing back down on his strangely hard bed with an _oomph_.

He opened his eyes groggily. Were those arms? _Tanned, freckled arms._ He stifled a screech as he took in the situation, suddenly alert. How was he so stupid?

_It's okay, it's not like you apparently fell asleep cuddling the most beautiful person on Earth or anything._

It wasn't even an exaggeration. Will somehow managed to even look good sleeping. That was not okay. And _no_ , Nico did not stare at how messily his hair fell around his face or how incredibly soft his lips looked with each exhale at all. Maybe a little bit. 

No no no. He had to focus on how to get out of Will's arms (did he really, though?) without embarrassing himself. He tried wriggling out from underneath, but all that resulted in was Will's arms pulling him closer, and Nico forgot how to breathe, the few inches between them condensing into mere centimeters. He could feel the warmth of Will's breath on his lips.

_What the fuck this is how I'm going to die._

Thankfully before that could happen, Will stirred. Nico tried to look asleep, peeking out as subtly as possible behind his eyelashes.

Will opened his eyes sleepily, letting out a small gasp and staring at Nico with wide eyes. Apparently regaining his train of thought, he muttered an appropriate, "Oh shit."

Nico realized just how much he had been relying on Will's body heat as soon as he untangled himself from the couch. He made to 'wake up' now that they weren't in such an awkward position, opening his eyes slowly as if he hadn't already been awake for the past fifteen minutes or so. 

"Hey," Will said, still rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. 

"Hi. I mean, good morning."

"Um, the couch isn't too comfy." Will scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. "My mom's probably already made breakfast, if you're hungry. A good breakfast is good for hangovers." 

"She really doesn't have to," he mumbled. 

"You try to tell her that. But, for once, I agree. After seeing what you and Hazel typically eat, I'm concerned. Food is good for you." 

Nico frowned (because no, he did not pout. Pouting was not a thing he did, even if certain blondes disagreed). "Well, if she's already made it, it wouldn't hurt."

-

There were no words in Nico's vocabulary to describe how much he loved Naomi Solace's cooking. "I really couldn't," he said with a polite smile as she asked if he wanted thirds. 

All the chefs in the world could never make a breakfast as good as hers, he decided. Until now, Nico had never thought "love" could be an actual ingredient. Spongebob had been right.

"Well, you're welcome here anytime, sugar," she said. "I swear, I have never heard so much about someone before getting to actually meet him."

"Mom, please, no," Will groaned.

"Don't mind him," Naomi said. "But if you ever need a meal and a place to stay, our door is always open." There was a sudden knock on the door. "Figuratively. Is someone looking for you, sweetie?"

"Oh. Probably. Sorry about that, Mrs. Solace."

"It's nothing. Will, go see him out."

Nico sighed as he opened the door. "Hey, Perce."

Percy ruffled Nico's hair, before pushing him behind him. "So. You're Will."

"I'm Will," Will confirmed. "Quick question: how did you find out where I live? Because I understand getting Nico is important and all but I'm slightly concerned."

"Oh yeah, Leo just tracked Nico's phone. No biggie."

"No biggie? He _tracked my phone_?" Nico exclaimed. 

Percy ignored him. "Anyways, nice meeting you. I'll take him away now." Will smiled and nodded. "He's cute," Percy noted, not even bothering to lower his voice. 

"Okay, I'm taking _you_ away now."

-

"So, why didn't you answer your texts?" Percy asked a few minutes later, on the way back to Jason's, where for some reason, everyone had decided to go meet up at.

"My texts?" Nico blinked, flipping out his phone. "Did you really make a group chat just to spam my phone? Typing 'Nico where are you' for an hour straight without getting a response seems pretty pointless."

"Hm, guess you were too preoccupied to check it, though." Percy waggled his eyebrows. That was scary.

"No. I just muted my notifications less than a minute into the party after Jason started asking me what he should wear."

Percy sighed. "Jason looks good in anything."

Nico pinched the bridge of his nose. "Sometimes I wonder how or why I ever thought you were straight."

"It's mutual."

-

"Aw, Nico, look at you, you're all grown up!" Annabeth squeezed him enough to make him wonder if his lungs would be okay once she let go.

"You saw me like two months ago," he said, letting her cuddle him anyways. Percy, Leo and Jason sat on the floor, Piper sitting quietly on the side of the sofa. 

"It doesn't matter. I did the same thing to Hazel when we went over to look for you. That's what you get for being the youngest."

"So, anyways, let's cut to the _chase_ , so to speak," Percy said. Annabeth rolled her eyes at the dumb pun. "Did you have sex?"

Nico sputtered. Piper and Jason both looked immediately uncomfortable, and Annabeth sighed. "What? No! I hate you so much, why would you even- It's not funny, Valdez!"

"I didn't know people could go that red," Leo said impishly. Nico glared at him. Annabeth patted his shoulder reassuringly.

"So, what _did_ happen?" Jason asked.

After shooting Percy and Leo another look, he turned back to Jason. "Due to unforseen circumstances, we ended up going to his house, and Naomi heated up the best chicken I've ever had, and then I think we watched a movie? Or tried to, at least, but then we ended up falling asleep on the couch, and, uh, yeah."

"I told you," Annabeth said. Percy grumbled and handed her a stack of dollar bills. 


	16. succulents

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my brain is literally dead what even is this chapter  
> also i know nothing about moving and shit but with money, you can do anything, right?

"We have the keys? Since when? You didn't think of telling me this before?" Nico exclaimed into his phone.

"It was only, like, two days ago. It's not that big of a deal," Jason said.

"I thought we wouldn't get them for two months?" 

Jason was silent. "Oh, yeah. I did tell you that. But it's not like packing up is gonna take that long. I mean, your dad can practically buy a literal legion of movers. Just stay out of your room for a while, and let them pack your stuff."

Nico frowned. That was a fair point. "Hm, fine."

"And then we can get settled, uh, maybe tomorrow?"

"Jason, what the fuck? What do you mean we're moving in _tomorrow_?"

Nico could practically _hear_ the shrug on the other side. "Why not? Again, Nico. You have a legion of movers at your very fingertips. After you call them, I mean."

"You're an idiot. I'm hanging up."

-

Apparently, people worked _fast_ after you paid them each two hundred dollars extra. Nico was in the bonus room, spinning on the swivel-chair thing as Hazel sketched quietly on the sofa.

"I'm bored. Are they done yet?"

Hazel roller her eyes. "You've been saying that for the past ten minutes, and the answer is still no."

"You wound me. There's nothing to do."

Something buzzed from beside where Hazel was sitting. "Oh look. Someone texted you. Now you have something to do." She threw it at him before he could protest, shooting him a look that clearly said _you better not complain one more time_.

Nico sighed but looked at it anyway. Maybe he'd just play some cringy app store game made for eight year olds. He frowned. "Hazel, what does 'can I show you my succulents mean'?"

She looked up. "What? Is some forty year old man texting you?"

"No. It's Will."

"Oh. Then it probably means literal succulents. Because Will."

_< blond guy no. 2> sorry that sounded weird_

_< blond guy no. 2> but lou and cecil said that my babies are irrelevant and for the record THEY ARE NOT_ _  
_

_< me> this is the only time i would ever say yes_

His phone lights up with a FaceTime request. What what what what. He thought Will meant _pictures_ , not a FaceTime. But he did agree to it, and he had nothing to do, so he accepted anyway, hoping he didn't look as _ew_ as he thought he did.

"-don't get to disrespect my plants and still stay here," Will had been saying. Nico sincerely hoped it wasn't to him. He turned to the camera. Nico wondered if taking a screenshot would be creepy. Probably. "Hi." He blinked. "Why did I call you? That was dumb."

"I was promised succulents," Nico said. Ah, yes, truly the most romantic line of the century. Boys would be swooning at his feet. And of course, his hair looking like little bat wings only added to his suaveness.

Hazel snickered off to the side. He glared at her and pressed mute. "Shut up, Hazel. You try talking to a cute guy about succulents. I don't even know what that means."

"Let me see," she said. "Will, not the succulents."

She got up and peeked over his shoulder. Nico unmuted himself so he wouldn't seem like a jerk. 

Will had flipped the camera and was talking about watering and dismembering the leaves or something. The plants he was talking about were tiny and looked like they were having an identity crisis and couldn't decide if they wanted to look like flowers or leaves.

"And this one, I got last week." He pointed to one that looked no different from the rest. "It's adorable." 

"It looks exactly the same as the rest of them."

"Ugh, Nico. I you said _cute guy,_ not his plants," Hazel muttered. Nico wanted to die just then. "Will, can you flip your camera?" she asked innocently.

"Oh, hi Hazel." Will flipped his camera and laughed nervously. Why he was nervous made no sense, Hazel knew _plenty_ about Nico, but there wasn't much she had on Will. 

"Hi." She looked Nico dead in the eyes. "I guess you're right, if blondes are your type." She went back to the couch, grinning evilly.

"So... do you have aloe vera, too?" Nico asked, hoping that aloe vera _was_ a succulent and that his definitely-red face could be considered a lighting issue. 

"I do, two, actually!" He went on as if nothing had happened.

Nico had never had that much of an appreciation for succulents than he did that day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was based off a ft with my best friend (who i may or not be pining over) where i said "look at her, she's so pretty" to my brother while and then he came over to look while she was ranting about succulents and he totally exposed me ;-;
> 
> and yes, aloe is a succulent


	17. sticking to the aesthetic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i changed the summary oop

Will being concerned for Nico's health was not new. "Why does he look like that?"

Lou flipped through her social studies textbook boredly. "Let me guess, smoking hot? Drop-dead gorgeous? The dictionary definition of perfection? And why the fuck are all the people in this dumb chapter so boring? I don't want to do a thesis on any of them."

"It's because they're all basic straight white men. And no, Lou, I don't mean any of those." Even though Nico did mark all of those boxes, that wasn't what he was worrying about right now.

"Ugh, of course they are. I hate this class. Writing about what's-his-face isn't going to help me in life at all." She shut her textbook in annoyance. "You know what, this is another level of procrastination, but I'll listen to you ranting about your boyfriend. What's up?"

Will rolled his eyes at her. "Just look at him."

Lou looked over. "I don't get it. Like, seriously, dude. Aside from the fact that your cinnamon roll of pure obliviousness looks like death, there's nothing new."

"What do you mean? He looks paler than usual and he's wearing sunglasses. Inside."

"William. That boy is always pale." She frowned. "But how has he not gotten dress-coded? Like, seriously, sunglasses? Maybe it's a vampire thing."  
  


"Again, not a vampire."

Lou snapped her fingers. "Totally genius idea. How about you talk to him?"

-

"So, _why_ are you wearing sunglasses, exactly? Because it's really not that bright. Or at all, to be honest," Will said.

Nico pursed his lips. "I need them," he said, very unspecifically.

"That doesn't make any sense. Did you manage to go blind over the span of a week?"

"No."

Will waited for him to explain. He didn't. "What the heck."

Nico sighed, as if the reasoning behind his sunglasses was obvious. "Okay, so apparently Valdez needed a place to stay, and so Jason, being the golden boy he is, let him stay with us. Which would have been fine if Percy wasn't staying there until he had to go back to California too. He left this morning, thank god. But, anyway, _I_ had the misfortune of rooming with Leo, and so, I take my contacts off, everything's fine, and then when I wake up, they're gone because _someone_ thought they were left over pieces of plastic and threw them away, and so, I wore these."

Will blinked slowly.

"What?"

"They're prescription," Nico added, as if that did anything to clear up the trainwreck of an explanation he'd just heard.

Will shook his head. "Why don't you just wear glasses?"

Nico looked offended. "Because I stick to my aesthetic, thank you very much." He wrinkled his nose. "Plus, they make me look stupid." Which was probably a lie because-

Hold on.

"Are you telling me you moved into an apartment in less than a week?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> vv short sorry :c  
> also im taking some time away from this fic to work on some other stuff, so updates are gonna be either shorter or slower, or probably a mixture of both


	18. ok um so

okay, so me and this fic have gotten pretty out of sorts, and i really can't write it anymore.

when i first got the idea for this was a couple months ago and i honestly still dont completely hate the initial idea, but the thing is the way i had it planned was just some events that i wanted to do, all in a similar setting. after starting it for a while, i realized the trouble i was having connecting those events, and the ways i did connect them felt very basic and unoriginal, it didn't feel like my writing. mortal aus - especially high school aus - are everywhere, and it's really hard making yours feel personalized, and i couldn't.

so, yes, while i will discontinue this fic, i'm still not giving up on my idea for it altogether. i think i might publish a couple oneshots with the ideas i had for this, but i really cant keep doing this as a multi-chap. im sorry :(


End file.
